22nd October, ISAD

The 22nd October is the International stuttering awareness day and every year on that date the SAN and stammering/stuttering organizations around the world join together for a common event which is reproduced throughout the world.

• Counseling and Treatment of Stuttering with adolescents and adults who stutter and also giving initial information, seminars and training of parents of children who stutter.
• Special courses and qualification of Speech Language pathologists on the new approaches and methods in area of Counseling and Treatment of Stuttering
• Special training of medical doctors (and specially pediatrics) and teachers about stuttering problems of children and students.
• Establishing of branches for Counseling and Treatment of Stuttering in the largest towns in Nigeria Lagos, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kaduna, Kano and so on.
• National investigation, observation, marketing, public relation (with schools, basic health service, families).
• Publishing and spread of up-to-date leaflets, brochures and books directed to parents of children who stutter and to all people and their relatives concerned about that so human and complicated speech problem.
• Organizing of self-help groups in the country and special permanent seminars for parents of children who stutter and for adolescents adults who stutter.

Projects under execution

In its struggle to let the world understand stuttering and to make the world and Nigeria in particular a better place for people who stutter, SAN is yet to carry out the following projects and programs.

1. Collection of books, video tapes and other materials about stuttering for our members. We don’t have at our office some books about stuttering where members can be reading and learning about stuttering.
2. Sensitizing the Nigeria public and the whole world about stuttering. In Nigeria this will be done through religious bodies that collaborate very well with us, socio-cultural groups, and community-based organizations. Access to the mass media in Nigeria is expensive. We don't have resources to pay for press coverage of our activities. However, since the beginning of this year our activities have not been covered newspapers in Nigeria.
3. Collaborating with some foreign institutions to sponsor courses on stuttering treatment and therapy training for our members.
4. Collaborating with various individuals as regards to Stuttering .
5. Identification of families where several members stutter so as to link them to researchers interested in stuttering the genetics of stuttering.
6. Identification of stuttering school children in all primary schools and higher institutions in Nigeria.
   

I wish to thank the many persons both within and outside of Nigeria who will be willing to support us to realize some of these projects.
SAN has developed a vision for Nigeria for the future. After noting with regret that there are no speech pathologists in this country and that the many stutterers here still resort to very crude methods of treating stuttering, and that many stutterers here, parents and teachers of PWS, do not have much information on how to deal with stuttering, we decided to fill this vacuum and in line with our vision to help develop a world that understands stuttering, we want to create a SAN STUTTERING, INFORMATION AND COUNSELING CENTRE in the Economic Capital of F.C.T ABUJA with liaison offices in the major localities of Nigeria.

That center will be equipped with books and other materials on stuttering. It will publish a journal called SAN INFO in English official language of Nigeria. We shall also publish information packets on stuttering that suit the socio-cultural and economic context of our country. We shall have trained stuttering counselors who will work here with our stutterers. We intend to equip our centre with a computer and internet services so that our members can have much information about stuttering that is always available on the internet which is still a rare commodity in Nigeria.

We would be gratefully to receive contributions in the form of advice or materials that can help us implement this project which will help stutterers in Nigeria. Should any person wish to contact us it can be through our email address info@stutteringnigeria.org or stutt@stutteringnigeria.org

Research committee vacancy

Vacancies for membership of the SAN research sub-committee will arise during 2005. researchers and therapists interested in joining this group are invited to register their interest, first with SAN through our email info@stutteringnigeria.org
In due course it will be necessary to provide a brief CV to assist existing committee members in the selection process. This should be emailed to SAN by the end of December 2005.

The aims of the committee include: setting up monitoring research projects, liason with groups with similar goals, location of funding fro research dissemination of information on stammering research.

Trainee fundraiser
Akingbade Olatidoye has joined the SAN as part-time trainee trust fundraiser for the duration of his one year training programme. Akingbade will be working on the funding for future projects for the SAN, planned to run from april 2006. He will also support SAN in developing several smaller fundraising schemes.

Telephone practice and support.

Once a month Stuttering association of Nigeria support group takes place over the telephone known as conference call. The group call lasts one hour and is run by a trained facilitator who stammers. It provides an excellent opportunity to discuss specific issues e.g stammering at work/therapy and practice telephone skills. There is also an active Telephone Link Up Scheme for SAN members. Contact the SAN office for further details.

Self help events prepared by PWS for PWS
by Akintunde Adeyemi
SAN Stuttering Association Nigeria is organizing a new kind of event " for people who stutter (PWS) which we call "experiential events. These are self help events held every other month for about a year and are quite successful among the PWS in Nigeria.These experiential events are prepared by a special team of PWS. The preparations usually starts several weeks before the event. Each experiential event is devoted to a specific subject and is held in a self help fashion. This means that all the participants take an active part in all that happens. There is also a group leader whose purpose is to instruct the participants about how to perform the prepared processes. The primary difference between experiential events and typical self help meetings is that experiential events are bigger in terms of number of participants and are held less frequently.

FAMOUS PEOPLE WHO STUTTER

Popular actors, singers and TV personalities

• James Earl Jones - an actor - He does ads for the phone company. He was the Rock of Ages in the Merlin movie and was the voice of Darth Vadar in Star Wars.
• Marilyn Monroe - an actress
• Carly Simon - a singer
• John Stossel - a television newscaster
• Mr. Bean - an actor from England
• Bruce Willis - actor
• Mel Tillis - country-western singer -- the side of his tour bus used to read "M-m-m-m-m-el
  

Great Leaders

• Winston Churchill - a statesman from England during WWII
• Moses - a Hebrew leader who lead the people of Israel out of captivity in Egypt.
• King Charles I - King of England
• Late Chief Moshood Abiola (MKO), the president elect of the annulled June 12, 2003 presidential election in Nigeria. He was known for his high level of intelligence in business and politics in Nigeria.

Great Writer

• Aesop - wrote Aesop's Fables
  

Great Scientist

• Isaac Newton - discovered the law of gravity
  

Great Athletes

• Ron Harper - basketball
• Bo Jackson - baseball and football
• Famous Dysfluent Athletes by Carol Flaherty

If you stutter, you are definitely in a good company.