“We belong here too”: One woman’s fight to get children with cerebral palsy into the classroom

Before she became an advocate, she was a child who struggled to hold a pencil. Her legs wouldn’t move the way others did. And the world seemed quick to decide what would become her fate. 

Diagnosed with cerebral palsy from early childhood, Tobiloba Ajayi grew up in a middle-class family in Lagos. She first got a sense of how she differed from others at the age of five. She suffered from strabismus, or “crossed eyes,” in which one eye deviates inwards while the other looks straight ahead. Her father refused to coddle her or treat her with compassion. “That’s the hand you were dealt so play it well,” he said to his daughter. 

In primary school, which was relatively inclusive, she was summarily described as “the girl that can’t walk.” But her most acute experience of stigma happened when she enrolled in a public boarding school at the Lagos African Church College in Ifako.

“That was the first time I actually saw someone stare at me till they nearly fell because, apparently, they had never seen somebody like me before that was in school,” she recalled.

People would cross to the opposite side of the road when they saw her, afraid that they might contract cerebral palsy by walking beside her. “People didn’t really want to associate with me physically.”

One particularly heartbreaking moment that Tobiloba recalled was during a training she organised. Some participants at the training mistook her for “the specimen” that had been brought to demonstrate people with special needs. Rather than react angrily, Tobiloba responded with poise, seizing the chance to enlighten her audience about her condition.

Following her experiences of stigma and misunderstanding, she developed a strong aversion to injustice. Her passion for fairness drew her to law school. “I always hated injustice,” she said. “It just made sense to study law.” 

In 2016, she applied for the Mandela Washington Fellowship in the United States and was selected for a video interview that was uploaded on Facebook and YouTube. Within hours of being shared online, the video gleaned more than 4,000 views. 

Before long, Tobiloba was swarmed with desperate messages from Nigerian parents of children with cerebral palsy. Most of their children had been rejected by schools—how had she been educated? One mother even attached the rejection letter she had received from a school that read, “We do not admit children like yours.” 

Taken aback by the rejection notes, Tobiloba began to dig deeper. She contacted some of her friends who were teachers and school administrators. The reasons for the rejection were varied. 

Schools fear that parents might withdraw their children if they found a child with cerebral palsy. Another reason why schools were hesitant to admit such children was that there were no teachers with special knowledge to teach such children. 

“If it were today,” they told her, “you wouldn’t be able to attend our school.” 

In Nigeria, at least one in every 90 children is diagnosed with cerebral palsy each year. That’s about 50,000 children annually. 

“In ten years, that’s half a million children,” she thought. “If they’re not getting an education, what’s our plan as a nation?”

She soon had an epiphany after a conversation with one of her supervisors at United Cerebral Palsy, a U.S. nonprofit focused on cerebral palsy. 

“Don’t think about the 50,000. Think about one child; go back to your inbox, pick one child and see what you can do to help that one,” her mentor advised.  

So she did just that.

Over the days that followed, Tobiloba engaged with one parent and found a school that would accept their child. And so it was—one success story followed another.

In 2017, she launched Let CP Kids Learn, an initiative that draws inspiration from Michelle Obama’s “Let Girls Learn.” She settled on the name after a lunch meeting with Mrs. Obama and other White House senior officials. It struck a chord with her. 

Since starting with only one child, Let CP Kids Learn has placed over 120 children in mainstream schools. To date, the organisation has directly impacted over 800 families and trained well over 1,000 teachers across 70 schools. 

It currently maintains a referral list of over 60 schools that are now open to inclusive education, many of which once turned children away.

Beyond school placements, Let CP Kids Learn supports families through counselling, assessments, referrals, teacher training, and school support. 

The organisation has also provided small business development training to 56 single mothers, awarded 90 tuition scholarships, and offered emergency support to over 235 families. Additionally, it has delivered medication and therapy support to more than 85 families.

Its annual symposiums on capacity building and community engagement draw an audience of between 80 and 100 participants and is now in its eighth year. 

Tobiloba measures success in real lives transformed. Children who were once rejected now excel in their studies. 

She speaks of Nimi, a girl once declared “unteachable” who is now topping her class in Year 7. There’s Praise, who spent most of her childhood at home before being reintegrated into the school system. And Tare, a bright child raised by a single mother, is now preparing for common entrance exams. These children are her victories. “These are the reasons I keep going,” she says. “These kids, my kids are breaking barriers.”

But the journey has not been without heartbreak. In 2019 alone, she lost eight children. It was a crushing blow. She remembers sitting on the floor in tears, telling her friends she couldn’t continue. But their response was sobering: “Do it for the ones who are still alive.”  So she did.

When asked how she handles criticism, her response is unfiltered. “If you’re not in the arena, your opinion doesn’t matter,” she says. “Come live in my body for a week. Run an NGO for a year. Then let’s talk.” 

She reserves her energy for the work, not for judgement. When the weight feels unbearable, she draws strength from the progress she sees: the children learning, laughing, and thriving.

“Stop sitting in church looking for miracles. Go to a hospital. Understand the condition. Do the work. This child is yours. If they don’t improve, it’s on you,” she tasks parents of children with cerebral palsy. She urges families to stop infantilising their children and to treat them in an age-appropriate way, empowering them to live fully.

To society at large, she has two myths to debunk: first, cerebral palsy is not an intellectual disability; it is a physical one. Second, it is not a spiritual attack. She speaks with the clarity and authority of someone who has lived the experience and built a legacy on transforming it into action.

Today, Tobiloba is a woman of impact. Her vision for the next five years includes more children in school, more mothers equipped to thrive, and more teachers ready to welcome every child. But beyond numbers, what she is building is hope: sturdy, inclusive, and unstoppable.

She is not asking the world to save children with cerebral palsy. She is demanding that the world stop excluding them. And in every child who now walks into a classroom once denied to them, her quiet rebellion speaks: We belong here too.