People with Down syndrome in Iraq and their families live with great difficulties due to the inferior view of society and the weakness of health and social institutions specialized in their care and rehabilitation.
On the World Down Syndrome Day, which was adopted by the United Nations on March 21 of each year with the aim of improving the quality of life of people with Down syndrome, meeting their needs and integrating them into society, Al Jazeera Net met the pharmacist Tala Maan Ahmed Al Khalil from the Warriors Academy Foundation in Basra Governorate, southern Iraq. She volunteered to care for children with Down syndrome and rehabilitate them through the arts of music, painting, and others.
Tala Al-Khalil volunteered to care for and rehabilitate children with Down syndrome (Al-Jazeera)
Between pharmacy and the arts
Al-Khalil says that she started her voluntary journey when she was 19 years old, when she opened two schools, the first for children with cancer and the second for people with special needs.
The Iraqi pharmacist adds to Al Jazeera Net that the idea at the beginning was that "this child has simple capabilities, so we thought how we could enhance the child's confidence, and we used art as a means to express himself, for example, when he paints a child with Down syndrome who is little expression in his tongue, but through paintings." And colors, the child is sending messages, and we can understand many problems through his paintings.”
Al-Khalil points out that the center was for children with cancer in the beginning, and the first study experience was to use the arts to raise the immunity of children, whether the child with cancer or Down syndrome is immunocompromised.
She notes that a child with Down syndrome has little speech and a heavy tongue, so it is difficult for him to pronounce all the words, and there are no centers that take care of correcting pronunciation, so we used the means of playing the piano or violin to hear the child playing and whether he tends to play sad or happy playing, as well as when he plays A child with clay paints faces and creates a change in his negative energy.
She continues, "When you give a child a talent, you give him confidence in himself and make him love himself by having a talent with which he faces the world, and today we have children with Down syndrome, painters, musicians, dancers, actors, and other arts around the world."
Pharmacist Tala expresses regret at the negative society's view of people with Down syndrome, and tells that she asked a school principal to receive some of her children at school, and her answer was harsh, as she said, "We don't need more crazy people."
Tala Al-Khalil confirmed that the closure of the academy specialized in patients with Down syndrome is a great loss for this segment (Al-Jazeera).
Millions of injured
Talah Al-Khalil confirms that the Warriors Academy today does not accommodate more than 70 children, at a time when Iraq includes nearly 4 million people with Down syndrome, despite the lack of accurate official statistics.
She stresses the need to provide a spacious school and a large building to help these children, pointing out that the current location of the academy is a contract with the state for a period of 3 years, with only a few months remaining and the contract expires, and they may have to close the academy permanently.
It turned out that the closing of the academy was a great loss for this segment. After the psychological treatment phase ended, the academy turned to the productive side, and today there are wood industries, a team of painters who paint in the streets, halls and anywhere, a team of wood carpentry and blacksmithing, and a team of cooks who prepare to sell their cooking, the trend is The work of a productive team of special needs.
Heba Maaleh stressed the need to establish projects for children with Down syndrome (Al Jazeera)
Skills Development
For her part, Heba Maaleh (Umm Jaafar), a motivational content maker on social media to raise awareness about Down syndrome, says that caring for this segment of people of determination (with Down syndrome), especially in the field of developing mental abilities, is very important.
Umm Jaafar stresses to Al Jazeera Net the need to establish projects for children with Down syndrome, because training and development of these people is necessary to develop their skills and help them integrate into society, not only technically, but also to develop all technical, sports, applied and craft skills;
To be a productive human being able to work and integrate into society.
She adds that Iraq and most Arab countries need to accept people with Down syndrome, and the word acceptance includes respecting them, providing awareness and community care, and providing training schools like the rest of the children.
Technology helps improve the lives of people with Down syndrome (Al Jazeera)
Painful stories
Umm Jaafar reveals that she received many messages from people with Down syndrome complaining about the lack or scarcity of private schools and institutes to train their children. One of the obstacles due to the difficulty of the curricula for the child of this age because they are not aware of the age gap, which leads to the children not responding to this type of education.
As well as the financial exploitation of families to accept their children in schools or private profitable institutes, as well as the bullying that children with Down syndrome are exposed to in schools by cadres and even the rest of the children and the use of their innocence and kindness of hearts as a material for ridicule.
Umm Jaafar summarizes the solution to the need to open private schools for these, and to introduce educational curricula for all schools to explain Down syndrome in simple ways to all children and teach them to respect this community group.
creative kids
Dr. Sorour Antar Al-Hamad, a pediatrician and member of the American Down Syndrome Group, confirms that children with Down syndrome are born with certain phenotypic characteristics and health problems that differ from one child to another.
In her speech to Al Jazeera Net, she points out that some of the injured are born with health problems that need continuous medical follow-up, but they can live a normal life and rely on themselves in some matters if they are trained.
Al-Hamad adds that the most important way to deal with them is to treat them like a normal child, with a focus on some skills that most children with Down syndrome need time to acquire, due to their learning difficulties and not because they are mentally retarded as some believe.
Al-Hamd pointed out that children with Down syndrome excel in various fields, such as swimming, running, horse riding, drawing, playing and other arts, and they can complete their secondary and even university studies, but some countries such as Iraq lack special care for this category, and therefore most cases are deprived of entering schools because The presence of qualified schools for them.
Taqi Abdul Rahim confirmed that the segment of people with special needs in Iraq lacks government attention (Al-Jazeera)
Concerted efforts
In turn, civil activist Taqi Abdel Rahim described the initiative of Dr. Tala Al-Khalil in treating Down syndrome children with music and various arts, as a great initiative and had a very beautiful impact on all moral, cognitive and social levels, whether on children with Down syndrome or their families, and left a positive impression on the rest of society. Iraqi.
In her interview with Al Jazeera Net, the civil activist says that the segment of people with special needs in general lacks government attention, which requires facilities and flexibility for their special situation, and we find only individual attention from community initiatives or civil society organizations.
It regrets the existence of some organizations that do not work carefully and professionally for the benefit of people with special needs, but rather use them as means to achieve certain gains for their personal interests in front of the community. It is necessary to unite efforts for the benefit of this group, support them as possible, and find a suitable way of living for them free of suffering and pain.
It emphasizes the work to encourage and disseminate these initiatives and draw the attention of society towards them, as the syndrome of excess love is an integral part of Iraqi society, and they have what we have and they have what we owe.
The Iraqi activist feels that there are positive changes towards different groups of children within society, but they need time, effort and continuous work to become the culture of an entire society, through education and spreading societal awareness through the media and websites, and the cooperation of various ministries.