Sekondi, June 22, GNA - Miss Beatrice Mayne, the Assistant Headmistress of the Twin-City Special School for the Mentally handicapped (TCMHS), has advised parents to stop discriminating against children with mental problems. She said discriminating against such children retarded their educational opportunities, limited their social integration and demoralised them.

Ms. Mayne said these in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Sekondi on Thursday. She said children with mental disabilities were are not "gifts from the gods" but "are normal children who have problems with their brain development".

Ms. Mayne said it was unfortunate that several parents with such children resorted to fetish, herbalists and churches to seek "spiritual cure" while others also abandon theirs in bushes. She expressed regret that though the school was making all efforts to train them to become useful citizens, parents withdraw them from the school and abandon them. Ms. Mayne said most of the children could be reformed and given some skills that would make them economically independent. "It is unfortunate that many vocational institutions in the country refuse to admit pupils from our school for further training in their chosen vocations." She said a few who managed to get further education have become self-employed as carpenters, vulganisers and assistants at the school. Ms. Mayne said the TCMHS was established in 1976 as a unit school under the School for the Deaf with six boys and four girls but now has a student population of 105. She said the present location of the school apart from being a death trap was not conducive to teaching and learning. Ms. Mayne appealed for material and financial support to enable the school to re-locate to its new site at Essipon and urged voluntary organisations and philanthropists to assist. 22 June 07