Founder of Oyetty Foundation for Special Parents, Mrs. Oyetola Akande, has advocated support for parents and caregivers of children with special needs to check physical, mental and psychological exhaustion, as well as give them optimal care.

Making the appeal yesterday at the official launch of the organisation in Lagos, Akande noted that parents suffer from trauma and several other challenges that come with catering for these special kids.

She said parents and caregivers also forfeit their dreams, careers, goals and aspirations to care for these children.

According to her, over the years, children-oriented charity organisations and institutions have focused and still continue to concentrate mainly on children who are sick, disabled and/or with special needs without attention to the parents and caregivers.

This, she said, spurred the move to establish a foundation that will support and care for parents of these children, who are neglected to face their problems alone.

“As a parent and mother to a special boy with Down Syndrome and with a life experience of the difficulties and challenges that come with full-time care for children with special needs, God laid it in my heart to start a mission that will help change the narrative and have the world recognise the sacrifice being made daily by the parents and caregivers of children with special needs and give the best care available for these amazing and selfless people, the special parents,” she explained.

Akande said the foundation has a mandate to provide expert guidance and support for mental and psychological wellness, eliminate isolation and stress-induced depression, and build a community of special parents for mutual exchange and genuine care collaboration.

Other mandates are: educational resources for better understanding on care for children with special needs, as well as help drive special parents to achieve their goals and dreams alongside care for their special children.

Operations Manager, Mo Rainbow Foundation, Folashade Olusinde, lamented the incessant discrimination, stigmatisation and cruel attitude towards children with special needs by doctors, hospitals, teachers, schools, family members and the society at large.

She said children with special needs are treated like people with deadly communicable disease and shut out of many endeavours.

“Doctors don’t encourage parents when they diagnose the child with Down syndrome. Doctors present the report of the diagnosis to parents without showing empathy, thereby leaving the parents with no hope of pulling through their children survival,” Olusinde observed.

According to her, taking care of children with special needs in Nigeria is an Herculean task, as its drains the parents mentally, financially, psychologically, and emotionally and it affects the siblings and other family members.