Last Saturday, it was International Stammering Awareness Day. It would have undoubtedly passed my radar if it wasn’t for a chap called Jonathan that I met a week earlier. He is a speech therapist - one of only four in western Kenya. He works in schools in the local area, helping children to overcome difficulties in language development and speech. Stammering is just one condition he works with. 

Jonathan organised an event at a local school to raise awareness about stammering, a common condition found all over the world. The event was aimed at children, parents and teachers - giving advice and overcoming common superstitions about stammering. In Africa, some of the superstitions include:

 - the person is drink or on drugs
 - when there is a full moon people stammer more
 - if you put a stone under your tongue, it will stop stammering
 - if you cut the tongue-tie, speech will improve - in very very rare circumstances this is true
 - if you cut the uvula (the bit that hangs down at the back of the mouth), the stammer will stop

The last two are pretty serious. On the day, lots of children and teachers came from nearby schools and there were interesting talks from adults that suffered from severe stammers as children. The event was held in one of the schools that Jonathan works - in this particular school, he found 20 children that have stammers. Having a stammer isn’t great. The children said that their stammer caused feelings of fear, embarrassment, anxiety and shame. Without some intervention and understanding from teachers, this can really hold kids back in their education. This makes Jonathan and his teams work all the more important and I was super impressed with what they do.

Find out more: www.stammering.org