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Children with disabilities will have an opportunity
to go to a regular school starting from September. This project will be
implemented in
Minsk by
the Ministry of Health. However this project is an achievement of representatives
of the third sector, Youth NGO “Otrkovenije”.
A
Minsk based civic organization the “Otrkovenije”
was founded in 2003. An initiative group of parents joined together to
represent interests of families, raising children with serious damages of the central
nervous system and orthopedic disorders. Such families face lots of
difficulties and the major one among them is how to integrate their child into
society.
“When it all started,
everyone had the same problem, our children were sitting at home and they
lacked communication with other children of the same age and did not have an
opportunity to go to school with them. All they had was their family and walls
around them…”, says the Director of the NGO “Otkrovenije”, Svetlana
Biakova-Mikutel.
Though being active only
for a few years, the “Otkrovenije” managed to establish contacts with both
state bodies and foreign charity organisations.
All together in the name of children
The “Otkrovenije” initiated
setting up special classes for children with cerebral palsy at primary school
yet in 2003. A Centre for correctional and developing education and
rehabilitation of the Centralny District of Minsk organized a barrier-free
environment for handicapped children and purchased special purpose school furniture.
With the assistance of the Swiss Office for Cooperation in
Belarus, a sports gym was equipped for
individual classes for children with cerebral palsy. Using sponsors’
assistance, the Centre could hire two trainers to work with such children. What
has been done at a primary school level was a pilot project aiming at identifying
the needs of children and creating proper environment so that they could be
integrated into ‘regular’ children’s groups. However that was only a primary school.
After graduation, children returned back to their apartments.
“The Minsk Educational
Department of the Ministry of Education finally heard us and made certain moves
towards. Starting from September 2008, 9 schools in
Minsk will be equipped with barrier-free
environment and integrated classes, where both, children with disabilities and
healthy children will be studying”, says Svetlana. “This is not the only successful
project of ours, jointly implemented with the authorities. This March an
Informational and Educational Centre for pre-professional training “Otkryty Mir”
opened, which united all the previously created by the NGO “Otkrovenije” clubs
and studios, where children with orthopedic disabilities would study computer
technologies, languages, digital printing, editing, design. The Centre also has
a theatre studio, art-studio and a guest house”, said Svetlana.
We need to learn
foreign experience
Belarusian officials and
experts sometimes lack certain knowledge and experience in order to solve issue
of the disabled children efficiently and correctly. Initially, the “Otkrovenije”
also lacked experience. The NGO managed to build up partner relations with an integration
service of the German city
Kiel and together with representatives
of the Ministry of Health visited their seminars and trainings for partners.
A new, starting project of the
NGO is called “Family circles”. It is a special form of integration of children
into society, existing in
Sweden, when both children and adults meet
and educate each other about what they know, discuss generation differences and
communicate. The idea came from their Swedish partners Grunden association è Studieforbundet Vuxenskolan. The
latter shared their experience and held a series of consultations in
Belarus. Today the “Otkrovenije” established
firm connections with their Swedish and German partners and they have plans to organize
foreign seminars and trainings.
The only issue still remains
unresolved, namely the lack of resources. The state is not always capable to
provide financial support for what disable children really need. All the
projects of the NGO “Otkrovenije” were implemented using charity donations and
membership fees exceptionally and now they strongly hope for the assistance of
their foreign friends…
Olga Rumm
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