Journal of Advocacy, Research and Education

4-16

Authors: Kingsley Chinaza Nwosu, Gabriel Chidi Unachukwu, Victor Chekume Nwasor, Anthony Obinna Ezennaka

The visual and dermatological conditions of children with albinism (CWA) demand that special attention is given to them to enable them to cope with their studies and daily living. In spite of the fact that they have equal intellectual abilities with their counterparts, a good number of them perform poorly in school and are likely to drop out of school. This study examined the belief/knowledge of teachers and educational practices adopted in Nigerian public secondary schools for CWA. One hundred and six (106) teachers from 12 secondary schools in Anambra State that teach CWA participated in the study. Major findings showed that regular classrooms were not albinism-friendly with regards to the provision of facilities; a good number of the respondents had faulty beliefs and poor knowledge about albinism, and teachers reported that they adopted albinism-friendly instructional and assessment practices. Teachers encountered a number of challenges in teaching CWA such as inadequate instructional facilities, difficulty getting their classmates to accept them in class and inadequate time to attend to them. There was no significant difference in the hypotheses tested except in the school location and instructional practices of teachers. Based on these, recommendations and limitations of the study were highlighted.

33-39

Authors: Enoch Kwame Tham-Agyekum, Ernest L. Okorley, Frank A. Amamoo

The critical importance of employment for sustained poverty reduction and curbing rural-urban migration necessitated this action research. It was embarked to introduce snail farming as alternative livelihood support for reducing poverty in the Kwaprow community at the University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast. The participatory action research design was adopted. Ten perceived poor people were selected from the community with the assistance of the key informants and other participatory rural appraisal techniques. The results were compared and analyzed for emerging themes and patterns. From the research that was conducted, it could be realized that the nature of poverty in the Kwaprow community exists in terms of material deprivation, lack of voice and influence, low human and health development and vulnerability to shocks and disaster. The extent of poverty in the area could be said to be relatively high with indicators of poor housing facilities, poor drainage facilities, low employment, high household dependency ratio, poor road network, environmental pollution and low access to potable water. The causes of poverty were found to gender inequity, lack of access to financial capital for business and low access to land for farming activities.