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Today, personnel from NARCIE, which is the National Resource Center for Inclusive Education went to several city schools to create awareness of diverse abilities in the regular school setting. I found out more:...

Courtney Weatherburne reporting
Kent Young's life changed forever at age 14. He suffered an aneurysm that affected his speech and left him partially paralyzed. But that hasn't stopped him from having a fulfilling life.

Kent Young, Survived an Aneurysm
"Vein burst in my head, right here, I had to get a surgery but I lost all my speech and I was supposed to gain it back not 100% but I am striving for the betterment of the people. I am fighting against the battle of myself."

And it is that positive spirit that Young and his team hope to instill in these kids. These special education officers are on a city school tour spreading awareness about people living with diverse abilities.

Juanita Cadle, NaRCIE Rep.
"This sensitization presentation we had here at gateway, this is the first for disabilities week and the purpose of it was to inform the public AND IN THIS CASE the students and staff of this institution as to what our responsibilities are to the public you know."

But sensitization is only one aspect of the process, these officers also monitor the special needs children and evaluate for new cases.

Juanita Cadle, NaRCIE Rep.
"We do comprehensive educational assessment on students with special needs and based on our findings what we do, we make observations and use different assessment batteries to assess our students and based on that data gathered then we determine what type of support the students may need at the school level and then from there on we make recommendations to the teachers so they can better work with these students and make the most of the classroom environment."

But it isn't that easy because there are limitations to these assessments.

Juanita Cadle, NARCIE Rep.
"There are so many other disabilities such as learning disabilities, intellectual impairments, hearing impairments, autism, and other disabilities that we can't out rightly identify. We are not doctors, we don't really diagnose our students, so we just do the educational aspect of it."

Besides these limitations, there is also a major challenge in data collection, at this point there is no clear figure as to how many kids are living with diverse abilities in Belize, and there are just pockets of data from various agencies.

Courtney Weatherburne, 7News
"Do we have data or a record to reflect how many kids, students are living with disabilities at this point?"

Juanita Cadle, NARCIE Rep.
"I can speak for NARCI, we have 2 special education offices in every district and they all report to NARCI, we do create a client list, a referral list and that is our database that shows how many clients or students, we call them clients after we assess them , and it shows how many students we are working with but it is not really a true representation of all the students who are living with disabilities in our country because there are a lot more students with disabilities who have not been identified. Some of our cases go to Human Services Department. Some of our cases go to Inspiration center. They refer some of their clients to us. So it's very important for there to be a national database and then from there on we know all the persons with disabilities, because in deed it's a big population, more than what we think about or what is reflected in our database at the moment and that's the reason why I think if they see the numbers then they would really know that we do have to work on more accessible communities and promoting inclusion more widely."

While these organizations are working on creating a national database, for right now, it is these kids and the wider community who can make a difference through understanding and acceptance.

Eva Middleton, Belize Assembly for person with diverse abilities
"I believe that young people of Belize need to become more and more encouraged to have a voice to help us who live with a diverse ability."

The tour continued this afternoon at 1:00 at Unity Presbyterian. They continue on Thursday at Central Assembly and Canaan Seventh Day Adventist. Apart from this effort, there is also ongoing training for teachers.