Imagine being in campus and never having to wash any of your clothes or to scramble for space on the hanging lines.
Well, this is the cool reality for students at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) who have been saved from the hassle of washing piles of laundry every weekend.
This is after the institution installed washing machines to enable students do their laundry comfortably. There’s a caveat though; the services are only available to students with disability.
According to JKUAT’s vice chancellor Victoria Ngumi, the innovative move is to promote inclusion and equal treatment of people with disability (PWD) in tertiary institutions.
Ngumi launched the special laundry service during a workshop themed ‘Gender and disability mainstreaming for sustainable development’ where she said that equal treatment of PWD in the job market will enhance economic growth.
According to the varsity top officer, gender and disability differences should not be reasons to deny anyone access to opportunities.
“Integrating gender and disability perspectives in institutions of higher learning will help strengthen the country’s socio-economic development,” said Ngumi.
She added that, “JKUAT will continue committing to government policies on gender and disability mainstreaming to ensure that even the physically challenged feel part of the larger society.”
As the special laundry service takes off at the institution, the only thing students with disability will be tasked with is to take their clothes to a common collection point every Wednesday. The clothes will then be laundered and dried before they are returned to them on Friday.
To curb incidents of clothes theft, Humphrey Hajj, a student at JKUAT says the use of name tags on garments will help.
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