JEDDAH, 6 April 2005 — Continuing its efforts to integrate disabled children into society, the Disabled Children Association, Jeddah Branch, yesterday held its second annual “Schools Are for Everyone” meeting with education administrators.
The goal of the meeting was to raise participants’ awareness of the importance of integrating disabled children in regular schools and the need for collective efforts and cooperation through discussing obstacles and presenting solutions. The program included an introduction of the DCA services and a presentation of the integration policy.
“We follow steps for integrating a disabled child into a regular school starting with an evaluation of the child and the careful selection of the school and preparing it for accommodating the child’s needs,” said Eman Ishki, a psychologist and member of the integration policy committee.
The association currently is working on organizing training seminars for teachers on the proper care for disabled children in the classroom. “What we are aiming for is complete integration in the whole curriculum taken by normal students for the disabled students with minor physical disability,” said Ishki.
Some of the disabled children gave a live presentation on the best way to accommodate their needs in a classroom, such as the appropriate desk, chair and wheelchair access.
The association so far has integrated more than 131 students in schools of different education levels in Jeddah and the neighboring areas of Bahra, Rabigh, Tuwal, Um Jurum and Asfan. “Everyday we receive on average 120 male and female students from different schools to observe and learn about disabled children and become familiar with having them as classmates,” said Basma Al-Johari, media director at DCA.
At the same time, integration policy committee members visit schools to educate them about the process and the recently established “Students’ Offerings” trust set up by the association to get them more involved. The committee members continue to visit and evaluate the disabled children’s progress and meet with school principals and teachers after the disabled students are enrolled.
“It might seem like a difficult thing, but if you open your schools, your minds and your hearts, you will find that it is easy,” said Fatima Al-Ahmadi, a committee member.
Many of them already were convinced and enthusiastic about the idea of integration but were fearful for the disabled children and expressed concern over the push for implementing integration.
“The process should be more gradual with careful study rather than this push to integrate more students at more schools,” one school principal told Arab News.
An advisory council for cooperation between the association and the Education Administration was formed to evaluate the progress of the integrated children. At the end of the meeting, schools that already are integrated were honored.
