Speak Out October 2018

Out & About

Professionals connect on communication disabilities in East Africa

OVER THE YEARS, the East African Speech Language Therapy (SLT) community have held regular Conferences on Communication Disability which have grown and developed as the primary event to provide professional development to East African SLTs, as well as showcase the work that is happening in the region. In mid-July, the 7th Conference on Communication Disabilities in East Africa was held in Kisumu, Kenya and hosted by Yellow House Health and Outreach Services. Sixty-two delegates from East Africa and beyond gathered to discuss communication disability around the theme of Collaborative Service Development. This event brought together allied health professionals and other interested stakeholders to discuss practice issues, contextual complexities of service provision in East Africa, as well as innovative research and solutions. Since 2005 East African SLTs have collaborated in planning and organising the conferences which have occurred in Nairobi (2005, 2008, 2009, 2017), in Kampala, Uganda (2012), in Mombasa (2013) and now Kisumu (2018). At the 1st East African Conference, there were only four SLTs from Kenya. At subsequent conferences, the number of SLTs steadily increased, as did the inclusion of other professionals such as occupational therapists, teachers, doctors and nurses. Increasingly attendees also included international academics, individuals with communication disabilities and their families, and organisations such as the Kenya Institute of Special Education and the Association for Physically Disabled Kenya. This meant that although alongside scholarly presentations there were opportunities for local clinicians, students, self-help groups, clients and their families to present their work and perspectives.

This has given the conference a unique vibe, which includes an atmosphere of respect between attending professionals and stakeholders committed to sharing knowledge. The theme collaboration rang clear throughout the presentations. Professor Edwards Kochung, Dean of the School of Education at Maseno University, spoke about the benefit of collaborative partnership among professions noting, ‘they work together because they want to improve the life of my grandchild.’ Keynote speaker and occupational therapist Martin Nafukho rallied us all to action saying, ‘when the train leaves the station, who boards, who alights, who sleeps through the journey, who is awake, who carried something, who did all to determine what the journey will be like. When you start a new house, you do not carry it all in the same night. In our spirit of collaboration, you cannot start a new home without a person. Here in East Africa, we are starting a new home.’ Grace Macharia, Chairperson of the Association of Speech and Language Therapists (ASLTK) gave the audience an update about ASLTK (established in 2012), which is now to be affiliated with the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education, becoming an officially recognised professional regulatory body. This has been tireless and passionate voluntary work by the members of ASLTK to achieve recognition for the profession in Kenya. An SLT bill for Kenya is in progress so that a scheme of service can be put in place, assuring government supported SLT positions. Currently Yellow House remains one of the few organizations actively hiring SLTs trained in East Africa. A highlight at this year’s conference were talks by Dr Joel Okutoyi’s, a Kenyan academic who shared his personal experience of living with stuttering, and Clare Davis who talked

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October 2018 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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