Help needed: School struggles to educate Albino children

Some of the pupils at Mitindo Primary School in Misungwi District, Mwanza Region

The school needs special textbooks for blind pupils and those with impaired vision due to albinism. Mr Hirani says that there was need for increased campaign locally to encourage people support less fortunate members of the society, including albino children. Albinos need hats and sunglasses to protect them from the sun. They also need lotion to avoid damage of their delicate skin.

People can effectively support albino youths upon proper mobilisation. There are reports that the nation is currently spending up to 90bn/- annually on weddings and other profligate activities.

AT the age of 16 years, Richard Feruzi, a boy from Ilemela District in Mwanza Region, dreams of being a politician cum human rights activist.

Richard, is an albino and in Standard Seven at Mitindo Primary School in Misungwi District, some 40kms south of Mwanza city.

He has already composed dozens of songs in condemnation of perpetrators of killings of albinos and several others in praise of the leadership of the country.

"I can play a big role in global campaigns against discrimination in whatever its form, as well as promotion of peace and love," says Richard, who has been a pupil at Mitindo since 2004.

He says that the Prime Minister, Mr Mizengo Pinda and the National Assembly Speaker, Mr Samuel Sitta, were among the people whom have inspired him to become a politician.

Richard is one of 105 pupils with albinism at Mitindo special centre in Misungwi district, which was initially established in 1956 as a middle school before becoming an upper primary school in 1967.

Mitindo Primary School Head teacher, Mr Juma Abdallah, says it introduced vocational training in 1975, some three years later it started to admit blind pupils and in 1989 began to enrol those with albinism.

Mr Abdallah adds recently that the school was currently having a total of 1,134 pupils, out of them 86 in pre-school classes and six on vocational training programmes like masonry and carpentry.

He says out of 147 disabled pupils, 42 were blind and the rest were those with albinism. The headmaster lists several challenges faced by the school including the influx of pupils during the last three years, following increased killings of albinos, since many parents brought their children to the centre for security purposes....

WORD FOR JOURNALISTS...

Can the media investigate this place and make the public know about its authenticity. The only person who has pursued Shilinde story is Vicky Ntetema of the BBC, but unfortunately the Tanzanian media has not seen Vicky as a hero, and thus collaborate with her in the fight against albino killings.


Vicky went to Magu where she was told that the Gambusi Kuzimu had vanished many years ago, but if she wanted to see it, the heavies in the witchcraft could give her some medicine which will lead her into the village which Shilinde who wants to be called Daniel now says they have all professionals, all means of transport and everything you would find in a modern city.

The task of Tanzanian journalists is to find the witchdoctors who are peddling albino killings and not looking for the city of wizardry.
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