St. Ursula Special School for the Mentally Handicapped is located in, Wanyange – Musima Village found in Jinja District within Jinja Municipality which is 80 Km East of Capital City of Uganda, Kampala. Jinja Municipality serves as the principal urban centre and market for the districts of Jinja, Iganga, Mayuge, Kamuli, Mukono, Bugiri, and Busembatia. It lies at an altitude of 1,230 meters above sea level and stretches along the shores of Lake Victoria and River Nile. The recent provision results of the 2002 National census put the population of Jinja Municipality at 86,520, of the 2.7 million persons with disabilities in Uganda, about 7,000 are in Jinja with all types of disabilities ranging from severe, moderate and minors. All these categories need specific approaches to their inabilities commensurate to their ages and category of disability.
The school is built 12 Km from the Town in order to reduce the expenses incurred while transporting the children and to keep the children where the situation is familiar to them.
VISION
“A Mentally impaired child who is rehabilitated independent and fits in the society”.
MISSION
“To provide education to the intellectually disable child to acquire life skills and attitudes that will help him or her fit in the society”.
GOAL
The goal of Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programme is to bring about total inclusion of children with disabilities (CWDS) in the community’s programme and activities by making them attain equal opportunities and equal participation in their communities. The families to accept fully children with disabilities as members; who are born, belong to the families and provide them with opportunities to become productive adults. The CBR programme calls for full involvement of the field staff of St. Ursula Special School with the clients, parents/guardians and the community.
MOTTO
“Give me a chance and with God’s help I am able”.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The major objectives of setting up St. Ursula Special School are to promote formal education for the children with special needs (Mentally Challenged), through building innovative, creative and sustainable capacity in children with special needs and disabilities within and around Jinja District. And to take advantage of the emerging opportunities and bring about empowerment and social economic development in their lives.
SHORT TERM OBJECTIVES
- To sensitize the parents, community and children about the skills, knowledge and information of helping children with special needs and disabilities
- To enable the beneficiary children to perform activities of daily living like eating, dressing, toileting, washing, bathing, reading and use of playing materials
- To avail technical services, training and capacity building to the children
- To offer counselling and guidance services to these disadvantaged children
- To get a vehicle to facilitate the St. Ursula Special School for the Mentally Handicapped activities, such as picking stranded children to and from the centre.
- To provide platform for dialogue on special needs of the disabled children by specialized teachers and parents or guardians of these children at community level.
LONG TERM OBJECTIVES
- To provide a friendly learning environment for the children with mental impairment
- To train children with mental impairment in basic skills of life
- To provide appropriate facilities for the smooth learning of children with mental impairment
- To reduce on child abuse faced by children from their guardians, fellow children and community
- To transform these children into development partners at the community level through training them to operate sewing machines, doing carpentry work, crafts, painting, stage music and drama shows among other activities deemed to be development oriented.
- To activate their ability to understand and appreciate the language of development in their communities hence becoming development oriented.
- To set up a Library and establish a data bank for the school
- To promote activities of the program by establishing links locally and internationally