School Education Program for Children with Intellectual Disabilities
Ramallah, West Bank, Palestine
21.2.2012
Star Mountain Rehabilitation Center (SMRC) is a non-profit oriented and a non-governmental organization of the worldwide Moravian Church Unity and active in rehabilitation in Palestine since the mid-1800s. The Center is located near Ramallah, 25 kilometers away from Jerusalem. It is a Center for rehabilitating and training Palestinian children and youth with intellectual disabilities.
We depend on donor money to be able to fulfill our services, and herewith, call upon all those who are interested, individuals and institutions, to support us in any way possible
In this information sheet, we are posting in section 1: information on the Center’s main activities, and in section 2: a short description of an urgent need at the Center.
Please read/skim till the end. There you will find several suggestions on how you can help the children and the Center.
At Star Mountain Rehabilitation Center five programs are running:
- The Integrative Kindergarten (3 month-old babies - 6 years old(
- The School Program (6 - 14 years old(
- The Autism Program (6 - 30 years old(
- The Vocational Training Program (14 - 40 years old)
- The Community Work Program (0-99)
The School Education Program is one of Star Mountain’s five programs that follows a structured daily schedule four days a week. The daily program includes a variety of skill building and therapy activities like motor skills and fine motor skills, independence skills, art, music and drama - the level of the activities depends on the level of the group.
The Program is attended by 33 girls and boys aged 6-14 years, including 9 students in the Autism Program.
The students are divided into four groups: one for children with mild intellectual disabilities, another for moderate and a third for severe disabilities. The fourth group is the Autism Program.
1. Project justification:
In Palestine, schools for intellectually disabled children are rare. When a child is born with intellectual disability or for some reason acquired the disability during childhood, most children are left without specialized or institutionalized follow-up. They remain either locked up at home as toddlers and little children, or later when a bit more grown up, could not be controlled by the family, and thus remain outside the house, on the streets, risking being physically, emotionally and sexually abused or attacked.
Star Mountain Rehabilitation Center has been running a School Education Program for children with intellectual disability since 1980. It is one of the first programs at the Center and in the country generally. A main change occurred in 2010, namely the creation of an autism program for children who have intellectual disabilities. Autism in itself is a new field in Palestine, and still being developed. We consider ourselves one of the pioneers in setting the grounds for a rehabilitation program for intellectual disabilities with a focus on autism, which is a combined disability, and one of the most challenging programs at the Center.
Children aged 6-14 years of age with intellectual disability, both girls and boys, have been enrolled in the School Education Program, benefiting a lot on several levels, as follows:
- Intellectually disabled children are given the chance to get out of the house, are given the opportunity to learn, train and develop capacities, build daily life skills and get needed physical and emotional support and therapy.
- Acquired skills during school years open up opportunities for the child such as vocational training and possible employment when adults, semi-integration within regular schools, and social integration within family and community.
- Intellectually disabled children are given the chance to build friendships and a support network with their peers who are also intellectually disabled, who either come from same or different villages. Without coming to the Center and spending days in their small groups and classes, these children would not know each other or have the chance to play together, mingle and laugh. They feel equal and respected. The idea is to support each other despite their difficult life conditions at home and in the community.
- Families of the disabled child and the disabled child him/herself are empowered and strengthened to be able to realize the basic human rights of the disabled person. We stress the need to obtain official documents for each disabled person such as a birth certificate, free health insurance and the Identity Card, to mention some. Further rights-related issues are linked to the right to training and education, the right to protection from all sorts of violence, the right to being integrated within the family and the community, the right to get health services, and the right to work, among many others.
Being a nation without a sovereign state for so many years, suffering from ongoing conflict and Israeli occupation, in addition to, the unstable and unforeseen future of the Palestinian Authority, social issues remain low priority on the list of the Palestinian government. Political and economic issues are high on the agenda, despite a few initiatives from some Ministries to tackle social issues, the disability issue being one of them. In this context, non-governmental and charitable organizations have learned to bear the responsibility for social issues over the long years, Star Mountain Center being one of them for the intellectually disabled.
There are other centers in Ramallah region who offer a similar school program for the intellectually disabled children. Three of them are in Ramallah City and mainly attract beneficiaries from Ramallah and Al-Bireh cities and some western villages. Another Center lies in a village called Silwad to the east of Ramallah. In other West Bank areas, such centers are very rare, almost impossible to find, which makes the demand of the Centers in Ramallah region higher, yet the lack of physical and human resources do not allow for their enrollment.
What makes Star Mountain’s school program different from the mentioned programs is that Star Mountain reaches children from villages in the northern area of Ramallah city, in the surrounding villages of Birzeit town and to refugee children from Al-Jalazon Refugee Camp and Birzeit (non-officially registered) refugee camp.
The need for this program is high. We have a long waiting list. The continuation of this program is crucial for the sake of the intellectually disabled children. It is our role to protect them and give them a chance for training, rehabilitation and relative independence.
2. Background of beneficiary region:
Star Mountain Center works in and receives children from twelve towns and villages, including two refugee camps surrounding Birzeit town, 25km to the north of Jerusalem. A few students come from Ramallah City, noting that the city is not Star Mountain’s targeted area, yet the need of the students is high, and exceptions tend to be made.
3. General objective:
The general objective of the School Education Program is to provide specialized educational, rehabilitation and integrative programs for special people, children with intellectual disability, within the context of a day-center and the cooperation of families and communities. It strives to create better life conditions and to open up future opportunities.
4. Specific objectives:
- Maintain, stabilize and develop the rehabilitation and educational program.
- Enhance the skills of intellectually disabled children.
- Realize leisure activities for the children.
- Cooperate with parents and families of the disabled aiming at creating a complementary relationship between the school and home.
- Network with local community institutions, governmental and non-governmental, helping the disabled children and their parents access health care or other services and rights.
- Follow-up children’s health situation through periodic medical checks and preventive measures.
5. Envisaged activities to be carried out:
- Run the education, rehabilitation program four days a week.
- Maintain 5 teachers and 4 assistants to run the daily schedule. Assistants have mild intellectual disabilities and have been trained and rehabilitated at SMRC’s Vocational Training Program and the Community Work Program.
- Offer specialized support services for children: physiotherapy, speech and occupational therapy, psycho-social counseling, art therapy.
- Train and rehabilitate children with intellectual disabilities, in the following skills: independence, academic, language, movement, social, economic, public safety and artistic skills. This is done through playing, drawing, music lessons, drama, and physiotherapy, inside the classroom and outside, working on an individual basis and within a group setting.
- Transport children from their homes to the Center and back.
- Offer one daily meal and a snack for the children.
- Purchase educational toys, games, tools and material needed for the rehabilitation, training process.
- Purchase technical aids: wheel chairs, walkers, high seats, etc.
- Purchase new furniture, such as tables, chairs, mattresses, carpets, etc.
- Provide children with a uniform, to stress equality among all and to create a system similar to schools for non-disabled children.
- Conduct leisure activities, such as trips and a summer camp, aiming at integration within community spaces, as well as, give children opportunities to enjoy themselves.
- Cooperate with, train and mobilize parents through home visits, meetings, and activities, with the aim of enhancing the rehabilitation process and raising awareness.
- Network with local community institutions, such as village councils, clinics, clubs, societies, institutions, schools, ministries, hospitals, etc. for referral and awareness building purposes and joint activities.
- Build the capacity of staff members through training courses and workshops, as well as, through establishing an educational library.
6. Beneficiaries (Please describe direct/indirect beneficiaries of the project including the approximate numbers):
Direct Beneficiaries:
- Children with intellectual disabilities, many of whom have also other types of disabilities such as physical, sight and speech disabilities.
- 33 girls and boys aged 6-16 years, including 9 students in the Autism Program.
- The students are divided into four groups with approximately 8 students in each group: one for children with mild intellectual disabilities, another for moderate and a third for severe disabilities. The fourth group is the Autism group, the students of which have a combined disability: intellectual plus autism.
Students are usually referred to the program through the following channels:
- The Community Work Program at SMRC: through home visits and community work, our staff members would recommend that a certain child be referred to the School Education Program.
- The Integrative Kindergarten at SMRC: children with intellectual disabilities enrolled at the Center’s integrative kindergarten will attend the School Education Program once they turn six years of age, unless they are integrated within schools in their own communities.
- The Autism Program at SMRC: if autistic students are rehabilitated enough to be able to integrate in one of the school groups, this will be done. However, this is a very slow and gradual process.
- Parents of intellectually disabled children who know or hear about SMRC bring their children to follow the School Education Program.
- Ministries and official institutions refer children to the School Education Program.
- Institutions related to persons with disability refer children to the School Education Program.
However, the need is much higher than SMRC’s capacity. There is a waiting list and once there is a vacancy new students will be admitted based on certain criteria such as the child’s disability level and the family’s socio-economic conditions.
Indirect Beneficiaries:
- Parents, who can breathe a sigh of relief seeing and knowing that their child is getting a chance for development.
- Local communities, who are neither able nor equipped to care for, deal with or rehabilitate children with intellectual disabilities.
- The Ministry of Social Affairs, under which our work with the disabled is officially and legally bound. Since the work in fact is the direct responsibility of the Ministry, and since the Ministry is not actually running the work itself due to many listed priorities and funding shortages, SMRC is practically doing the Ministry a “favor” in working in the field of intellectually disabled persons, bearing some responsibility on its behalf.
- The Palestinian community and educational institutions as a whole, in creating a staff force specialized in special education for the intellectually disabled, and in training university students in this field as well.
The program costs around US$150,000 per year. We need your help in supporting it to be able to provide best services for this very unique and overlooked social category.
We call upon you to help in any way possible, through the following options:
Help from individuals:
- Make a onetime donation, specifically for this program (The School Education Program).
- Make a regular monthly or yearly donation for one of Star Mountain’s programs.
- Cover the yearly tuition fees of one student (British Pound 202 per year), to help him or her continue receiving the service.
- Make a donation to be able to warm up the children’s classrooms during winter months.
Help from institutions:
- Allow us to submit a full proposal with a detailed budget, specifically for this project, to consider for funding.
- Allow us to submit a proposal for one of Star Mountain’s other programs.
- Cover the salary of an occupational therapist.
Any other ideas are more than welcome.
Thanks a lot for your interest and support in advance....
For more details, contact us at:
Contact Person: Ghada Naser - Director
Tel.: +972 2 2962705/6/7
Fax: +972 2 2962715
Mobile: 0597 940004
Email: starmountaincenter@gmail.com