Category: New Woman

For Mrs Dotun Grace Akande, Proprietress/Founder, Patrick Speech and Language Centre, a special school for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other related developmental disabilities, life, as she’s concerned, is to see the peculiar children reabsorbed into regular lives. She shares what constitutes passion and values for her with JOKE KUJENYA

ANY joy in doing what you do? Joy, for me is when a child, who, yesterday, could not speak, but today walks in and says ‘good morning’. That gives me, you know, the kind of high-rating joy the word of God speaks about.

Let me cite this example: a child that usually walks past you, as if you or no other person exists, every morning, and this would have been on like that for several months. But just one particular morning, he stops, looks at you, gives you a smile, and then walks on. Wow, that is joy for me from the life of a child with autism. The point is, it isn’t that this same child had not been seeing you prior to such a day.

He may even have been acknowledging you, but his system had not yet processed the information that you are there. And he would have been processing it over time until that particular day. And each time before that day, you would have been telling him ‘good morning’ or whatever. However, he or she would just walk on as if nothing mattered. He won’t even say a word or stop to nod. But on this particular day, he just gives you a smile or a ‘good morning’ or whatever the child chooses to say. Some of them may just extend their hand for a handshake without saying a word, but it’s like an acknowledgment to say ‘oh, I’m also here.

That’s one of the things we see here that give us joy. We also derive joy from situations in which families had given up already, and then they bring the child here. There’s an example of a woman who brought her son, Daniel, to us and asked, “Will my child ever talk?” And I asked her, why did you say such? She told me, at age four, no speech, not acknowledging that anyone else is alive and around him, but only runs around the house playing with himself. At that time, I could not answer that question confidently. And two or three years down the line, she came to me and said, “Mrs Akande, I think my child is now ready to attend regular school.” I said yes, I think our job in this school is done at Patrick’s. Sometime later, she came back and said, “Mrs Akande, my son talks too much.” I had to gently correct her and remind her that she was the same person who lamented if her son would ever talk. Seeing these things give me joy indescribable. Another woman also brought her son to tell me his favourite game. He could not make any sound or speech at the time he was brought. Now he communicates with his siblings and parents.

Any personal gains?

Personal gains? I won’t look at it as such. Just like every other person working.

I am paid to do what I do. This is a school, and it is a business. If I don’t get paid to do what I do, the business could dwindle. We must not be seen to be dipping our hands into the purse of the school. Everyone of us that works for Patrick’s gets encouraged. That’s the rule. For the peculiarity of the job we do, we’re not doing badly. You have to be in it to appreciate what I mean.

What’s the impact?

Then, I have to look back. Since we started in 2006, we have seen over a hundred families. That means we have attended to about the same number of children. And out of those, plus the ones that we monitor from afar, we can say that we have fully impacted on the lives of, at least, over forty per cent of them. Every child that works into this school ends up getting some form of transformation either in the area of attention, speech, cognitive development, fine motor skills; that is, any work that has to do with their hands and gross motor skills, the ones to do with their legs, we haven’t done badly. There are many other areas. Some of them will be good at few and not so good on the other aspects. What we do specifically is to respect where each child’s strength is. We had a child that was brought in at about age of 17 with no skills. Speech was also a huge challenge for him. But he later developed in the area of music. You can imagine what it means to learn the piano at that age. It took him almost six months to grab anything. But now, he can pick a piece within one week and he is able to play. Those are some of the ways we have impacted on many of these children and their families. For many of those that had come to Patrick’s, and had either stayed or consulted with us from outside, they have often told us how greatly we have helped them.

Helping autistic children parents?

Good question. We have an annual awareness programme that is co-run with the Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB). It started when the bank invested in Patrick’s at the time they realised that the awareness was very low especially to small income families. Many families with this type of children cannot afford the services to cater for them because they are very costly. We then decided that for those that cannot afford the services, let them know what the challenge is. In addition to that, we felt the need to let them know the simple tools they can use on their own. We started the programme with about 1,500 people. Now, it has grown to over 5,000 including parents and those that care for such children from all over the place, yearly. They even went as far as partnering with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), to try to help them get other low income families with this challenge to bring in their children when expatriates are in town, and then, follow up either with us or LUTH. We also have dedicated social media to enhance our level of awareness. We have cases of those that think it was their mother-in-laws that inflict their children and so on. We let them know that there is nothing spiritual about autism. And that it is not yet the end of the world for any child with the spectrum. They can be helped and salvaged with the right tools.

Any adjustment in parents’ mentality?

During the premier of the early movies, a parent drove up to me and said she literarily dragged her husband to the event to see things for himself. Prior to that time, the husband had not been relating with the child. She told me that the man wept from the start to the end of the movie because he was made to see his own life and how he had neglected the family since he became aware of his situation. The movie stared him in the face as if it was his own life with his child being relayed. Later again, the woman wrote to thank me for helping their home; that since the premier, the husband had changed and now played his fatherly role and even went as far as playing with their child. She even confessed that the way her husband embraced the child actually saved her marriage. That is one of the impacts we see from families. There was another lady who called from Canada and expressed the interest to send her son to us in Nigeria to help transform. Another lady came in from the USA and decided to support us because she had such a child and wanted us to help many others. She noted that seeing the documentaries convinced her we knew what we were doing and so, we should be supported for the sake of other parents and children when it comes to autism in Nigeria. I think the impact is unimaginable.

Personal experience?

Yes. At some point, my son, Agbolade, was diagnosed with the spectrum. At first, I was shocked and couldn’t grasp it. After the diagnoses, I still worked for some couple of years. But it got to a point I had to tell my boss that I needed to go and look into what the problem with my first son was. I was at that time a banker. I studied economics and worked with First City Merchant Bank (FCMB) at the Shares Unit of City Securities Limited in charge of the treasury for about eight to nine years. I needed a job that would give me time to be at home for when he returned from school. My husband was understanding with me and I tendered my resignation. But not long after, I got another job at Broad Bank which I quickly jumped at. I worked there for two years at their treasury section and loved what I was doing. Then, they did restructuring that affected me. But my son needed me. This was around 2003 and I shelved the quest to develop my career to give my son his life back. In 2004, I started a clothing business in Ikoyi side of Lagos, to support my family. All the while, my son had already begun therapy. Then, one day, I was at home and his speech therapist came around. And I told her that it’s like God’s Spirit just told me to start a training school for children with autism. She told me she agreed with me that it was needed as number of cases were growing then. She also encouraged me that I would really learn a lot from it and many families need help, but sadly, Nigeria had nothing on ground. So, I shared the idea with my husband and he told me that first, I would need a total change from my fire-brand personality to being more calm with children. He also said that from being an economist into teaching, I must go for trainin. And working with these children has been for me, my Master’s degree. I am not your bookish type. I love practicality more. I registered for Master’s twice, but ended up not doing it. I went to National Autism Society in the United Kingdom and they put me through series of hard core trainings working with children with the spectrum, future exchange programme and all I needed to be equipped with. When they were satisfied, I got certified. Then, I had the task of looking for funding to set up the centre. And in 2006, when we sent proposal to the late Kayode Aderinokun of GTB then, he bought into the idea as a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) for the bank. Since then, the bank has been of great support.

Change by working with these children?

Not just my person, it has changed my life. If you knew the kind of person I was and now, compared with my current personality, and the works that I do daily with these children, you would easily conclude that this couldn’t be about me, but God. Some of my old school mates still wondered that I could work with, not just little children, but special children with peculiar needs. A few of them have had to come to Patrick’s to watch me relate with these children. Those that cannot come still express their wonder that ‘Dotun Fowora runs a school for children with autism’. They all knew that patience was not one of my attributes. But now, all that has changed because working with children with challenges requires perfect patience. Once, I played host to them at the school for one of our old students’ meetings and they all marveled at what God did through the autistic condition of my son, Agbolade.