dav
The global Occupational Therapy (OT) community celebrates World OT Day each year on the 27th of October. This tradition was birthed in 2010 with the purpose of promoting and celebrating the profession internationally. This important day provides an opportunity for the community to heighten the visibility of the profession, as well as further tighten the camaraderie among members of the industry.
In 2020, Kenya held its first World OT Day event in JKUAT with support from the University’s Rehabilitation Department. The event was organized by the OT students who were also the first consumers of the OT bachelor’s degree programme in the country.
JKUAT Rehabilitation Department hosted yet another OT Day commemoration event this year, the global theme being “opportunity + choice = justice”. This is to say opportunities to participate in activities/occupations that are meaningful and relevant to our lives is justice. Lack of or limited choice in what we do everyday as well as barriers to the opportunities we need to perform our chosen activities on the other hand, is injustice.
The event took place at the College of Health Sciences complex, ground floor from 11:00 am and concluded at 3:00pm. The goal was to advocate for and inform people about the occupational therapy profession as well as to illustrate the theme of the day. This was done through informative fliers that were passed around, posters and a banner, videos about OT projected onto a wall and students were stationed at convenient places to give more information and to answer questions about OT and the event. Some students went around school to talk to
people about OT. In addition, there was a display of some assessment tools used in occupational therapy and assistive devices that OTs often prescribe and train users on which included different types of wheelchairs, walking aids and splints.
The day also consisted of fun activities and challenges such as a bread eating competition, an egg peeling contest where the participants had to peel an egg using one hand, a sack race and they also had people explore wheelchairs and other assistive devices. These activities were intended to illustrate the theme in a fun interactive way. To illustrate how challenging it is to participate in our chosen occupations when we are denied the opportunities we need for instance time, barriers in our physical environment, dysfunction in our bodies among others.
The day concluded successfully with more people knowing of and gaining a better understanding of the OT profession.
