Inclusion at green hills academy Rwanda

My name is Darlin Musoni, I am a SPED/T.A at Green Hills Academy (GHA). I've been working at GHA for over 5years now. I love seeing the progress made during my time doing this work. Seeing our students progress one step at a time and also developing their confidence and independence is absolutely amazing. The biggest highlight in all these years is seeing our students communicate their needs verbally, especially the students that started out completely nonverbal. The most challenging thing in my Job is getting people to understand that our students are just different but not less. I've learnt a lot for sure since joining this amazing team but more than anything, I've learnt to be patient and calm in challenging situations. This work is the epitome of the saying, “patience pays”.

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Hi,
My name is Mucyo Bonita, I work as a special education assistant teacher at Green Hills Academy. It’s been 4years and a few months since I started my job in this field.

Special education is special as the name clearly puts it. I love the fulfillment that the person who is involved in the life of the students gets from the fruits of the hard work invested. It might take days, months or even years, but through persistence, patience, flexibility and most importantly advice /encouragement from others, the hard work pays off. This hard work I am talking about doesn’t only come from the adult or the teacher involved, even the student has a portion of it that he/she adds on for their achievements. These achievements are not only academic, but social and emotional as well.

One best highlight of my work since I started working with my student is the reward of a successfully achieved goal. Where a student used to struggle socially, after some time and patience , you start noticing growth of confidence and self control. Where a student used to struggle with addition or other math operations, reading or writing, you start seeing bits and more bits of improvement. This eventually leads to the realization that nothing is truly impossible.

Our job is not only marked by great highlights in achievements because before the achievements, always comes endurance. The latter is usually hard and mostly difficult to maintain. Am aware that endurance is not just needed in our job as special education teachers. But it is crucial, inevitably essential and demanded specifically in our SPED department in order to reach success in achieving our goals with our students.

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Have you ever wished to be included in anything? It could be a party, a game or even a class session to learn a certain life skill. We all intrinsically know that it feels good to be included. The benefits of inclusion go beyond just feeling good about it. Often, being included in a community means access to opportunities, same rights and same protection. We all, theoretically, believe that every human being should have equal rights to not only be counted as part of their different communities but to also gain access to all the benefits rendered in those communities regardless of their differences.

We shouldn’t group people and give them a different world or pose limits on them due to their inborn differences. When it comes to children, all children should be given equal education opportunities and equal rights in every area that serves to sustain the needs of children. This is the motivation behind the creation of Inclusion at Green Hills Academy (GHA) social media platforms.

Inclusion at GHA social media platforms are here to shed light on the topic of the inclusion of children with disabilities in mainstream schools in Rwanda. We will be sharing powerful stories of how inclusion is impacting the education of children with special educational needs at Green Hills Academy Rwanda, together with all students in the school. We hope that it will change someone's perspective and raise the awareness of the Rwandan population at large on this important topic.