1 week ago
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The maiden variation of the National Dyslexia Awareness Carnival held successful Abuja has drawn attraction to 1 of Nigeria’s slightest understood learning disorders — dyslexia.
Organised by the Voice for Dyslexia Foundation, the event, which coincided with International Dyslexia Awareness Month, featured an advocacy walk, interactive sessions, and consciousness campaigns aimed astatine dispelling misconceptions and promoting aboriginal involution for radical surviving with the condition.
Founder of the Foundation, Chiaka Kelechi Franklin, popularly known arsenic Mr. Dyslexia, said the carnival was designed to commencement conversations and beforehand understanding.
“This carnival is designed to marque radical inquire questions,” Franklin said. “We privation Nigerians to cognize that dyslexia is real, it is not laziness, stubbornness, oregon a spiritual problem.”
Franklin, who was labelled “slow” arsenic a kid owed to undiagnosed dyslexia, said the acquisition motivated his advocacy work. “I grew up being misunderstood. Nobody knew what was incorrect with me. Once I discovered dyslexia, I knew I had to marque definite different children don’t spell done what I went through,” helium said.
He identified deficiency of teacher grooming and mediocre consciousness arsenic cardinal barriers for neurodiverse learners. “Our teachers are not trained to place dyslexic children. Many parents inactive judge their children are possessed oregon lazy erstwhile they can’t work early,” helium noted.
Franklin besides disclosed that a Dyslexia Inclusion measure had been projected done the House of Representatives to beforehand inclusive acquisition nationwide. “When the instrumentality is passed, teachers volition beryllium compelled to enactment close and supply due learning support,” helium said.
Among attendees was Eunice Adams, a peculiar needs pedagogue and parent of a dyslexic child, who shared her idiosyncratic acquisition navigating Nigeria’s acquisition system. “My lad was seen arsenic intelligent but couldn’t place letters. I realised helium mightiness beryllium dyslexic and started teaching him astatine location utilizing magnetic letters,” she said.
Adams called for much inclusive policies successful schools. “My lad tops the oral tests but struggles successful written exams. The strategy doesn’t let him to explicit what helium knows,” she said. “In different countries, dyslexic learners get other time, scribes, oregon computers during exams. We request that level playing tract here.”
The lawsuit besides featured Kanyeyachukwu Tagbo-Okeke, the autistic kid creator who holds the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest creation canvas, and his mother, who praised the carnival for giving anticipation to families raising neurodiverse children.
Franklin urged parents to clasp consciousness alternatively than denial. “Dyslexia doesn’t specify you,” helium said. “Discover your spot and physique connected it. We are originative and intelligent, we conscionable larn differently.”
As participants dispersed, their placards bore a unifying message: “Dyslexia is not stupidity, it’s a antithetic mode of learning.”
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