Harmony Foundation

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Inclusive Education through Inclusive Education centres.

Harmony Foundation has started an integrated campaign to “create an inclusive, barrier free and rights based environment for the Persons with Disabilities (PWDs). This campaign has two main components:

  1. Inclusive Education through Inclusive Education centres, teachers’ training, refresher course for teachers, parents counselling and educational material development
  2. Advocacy and mass awareness campaign through media outreach programs, public forums, lobbying and advocacy meetings with the parliamentarians and district government officials, theatre shows and media conferences

1. Inclusive Education:

The Inclusive Education Centre in Toba Tek Singh is just started and the children are being enrolled in the centre. The centre has two teachers who teach the students with inclusive education tools. The timing of the centre is from 8:00 am to 12:00 noon.
The Inclusive Education Centre in Village 206 GB is running well and there are 65 children including 8 disabled children. There is one teacher with one helper who works voluntarily. The students study in the morning from 8:00 am to 12:00 noon. The teacher is trained in child friendly teaching and inclusive education methodology and she has experience of more than seven years.
A teacher training Program was organized in Toba Tek Singh for selected thirty five teachers from the government schools and private schools. Twenty five teachers attended the training; the missing ten belonged to the government schools. The teachers who are the teachers in the primary schools attended the training program with the focus on inclusive education methodology and the child centred education.

Two Teachers’ Refresher Courses have been conducted with the teachers who attended the teachers’ training. The refresher courses focused on the issues that teachers raised after using the inclusive education tools in the schools. Most of the issues were concerned about communication with the disabled children in the class rooms. Most of the teachers when attended the training did not have disabled children in their class but after they attended the training, they surveyed in their area and enrolled the disabled children in their schools. The trainer facilitated the especially prepared exercises to convey the lessons and language to the disabled children.

Educational material is being prepared and different games, exercises, lessons, sports and tools for teaching of disabled children are being prepared. Most of the education material has been tested in the inclusive education centres and has been declared successful. A motivational video for the disabled children has been recorded and is being used in the inclusive education centre in Village 206 these days. The motivational video is a short video which convince the viewers to take action and we have discussed the video with the children and parents in the centre and they get a very clear message from the video. A CD of songs for teaching mathematics, Urdu, English, social and general knowledge and inclusive games is being prepared and hopefully will be ready by the end of this year. The video is also uploaded on YouTube and can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBTcVCctbZo.
Three parents counselling meetings were arranged with the parents of the disabled children and normal children in Village 206 GB and Hasil Pur. The meeting in Village 206 GB focused on the creating inclusive environment in the centre and in the home. The parents shared the difficulties of keeping the disabled children at home and teaching them. The difficulties, most of them, were the reluctance of the parents to take responsibilities of keeping and teaching the disabled children. Teachers and Field Workers of Harmony Foundation gave suggestions and ideas on creating ease for the parents regarding disabled children at home.

Advocacy and Mass Awareness Program:

Advocacy and Mass Awareness program focuses the general public, policy makers, parliamentarians and opinion makers through activities that highlight the rights perspective of the position of the disabled people in the society. Harmony Foundation has focused on the issues of 

  1. Shelter
  2. Mobility
  3. Employment
  4. Social Recognition
  5. Education
  6. Health

Working Paper:

A working paper has been developed on the issues and condition of the PWDs in Pakistan. The bindings on the government through international covenants and the national legislation and the social situation are discussed in the working paper. Based on the state’s responsibility to provide the friendly atmosphere through promulgation of laws, the working paper presents recommendations for the society and state.

The activities conducted in this reporting period are following:

Public Forums: Public forums are organized with the civil society organizations, teachers, human rights activists, lawyers, youth and trade union leaders to sensitize them on the issues of the Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) from the angle of inclusive, barrier free and rights based environment.  The Public Forum is a forum to discuss the attitude of the community towards the issues of the disabled people, provision of basic services to the PWDs, care and behaviour of the family with PWD, legislation for the PWDs, language and communication with the PWDs. The attitude of the general masses towards the issues of the PWDs and their role in the society is discussed. Theatre performance is also shown in the public forum. The participants discuss the issues after the watching the theatre and the motivational video prepared by Harmony Foundation.  

Media Outreach Programs (Radio Programs):

FM Channels have wide coverage of listeners in the urban and rural areas. Harmony Foundation held two radio talk shows on the issues of disabled people. The topic of the first talk show was the employment opportunities fpr the PWDs. The participants of the talk show discussed the issues employment in detail. The participants included District Officer (Community Development) Government of Punjab, Mian Muhammad Rafiq (Member Provincial Assembly), Mr Rana Khalid (Journalist), Ms Khursheed Ansari (social Worker) and Mr Abdul Jabbar (Electronic Media correspondent) spoke in the talk show. After the talk show we received 217 telephone calls, emails and letters regarding the program.
The second Radio Talk Show was entitled as “attitude and acceptance for the Persons with Disabilities”. This talk show was recorded with the youth and students of universities and colleges. A special key note address was given by Mrs Mehmooda kausar (Principal Government Deaf and Dumb School) on the attitude of the general public towards PWDs and the challenges faced by the disabled people in getting recognized in the society. Mrs Mehmooda gave case studies and life histories of the struggle of the PWDs in the society. The students asked questions and shared their personal experiences with the PWDs. The most important part of the discussion was on the care and love needed by the PWDs. The eating, drinking, sleeping, playing, studying, moving and talking were considered as the most prominent physical needs.
Both the radio programs were liked by the listeners and there is a demand for more talk shows.

Media Conferences:

Media Conference is one of the most important activities of the campaign as the media is the most powerful opinion maker these days. The correspondents of the news papers and TV channels are badly insensitive to the issues of the PWDs. They do not understand the issues from the human rights perspective. The language used for the persons with disabilities in the news papers and TV channels is not inclusive rather it promotes the gap between the PWDs and the society. The language used for the PWDs is that of pity and sympathy and does not support the cause of giving them equal human rights in the society. The media conference was organized with the print media and electronic media correspondents of Faisalabad and Toba Tek Singh. The motivational video and theatre on the rights of the Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) was shown to the participants. The working paper was also provided to the participants. A detailed briefing on the situation of the Persons with Disabilities was given to the journalists. The points came under discussion included implementation of the existing laws regarding the provision of basic needs to the PWDs, the sensitization of the readers and viewers of the media (print and electronic) regarding the situation of the PWDs, the role of the media in getting basic human rights for the vulnerable groups especially PWDs, the inclusion of the PWDs in the main stream development process and presentation of the situation of the PWDs issues in the media as a human right issue. A small list of the words was provided to the media persons to be used when they report the news of PWDs.
Total 80 journalists participated in the program.

Lobbying and Advocacy Meetings with the Parliamentarians and District Government Officials:

Three meetings with the parliamentarians and district officials have been held in Faisalabad and Toba Tek Singh. Members of Punjab Assembly Mrs Anjum Safdar, Mrs Afshan Farooq, Mr Mian Mohammad Rafiq, Mr Ayub Ghadi attended the meetings. District Nazim (Head) Toba Tek Singh Mr Choudhry Abdul Sattar and Mr Amjad Yasin (Naib Nazim (assistant Head) Faisalabad attended the meetings. District Officers for Education and Community Development also attended the meetings. 
Working Paper is presented to the parliamentarians and officials of district government for their information and for further action. The issues and condition of the PWDs is discussed in detail and the contents of the working paper are discussed in detail.

Theatre Training and Theatre Shows:

A six day Theatre training program was organized for the theatre group. Harmony Foundation made a contract with the True Act Theatre (a theatre organization) to conduct this training. This six day training focused on the issues of PWDs, theatre techniques, effective theatre, focus areas, role of the viewers, types of disability, situation of disabled persons in the society, laws and legislation regarding the PWDs.
In the training two theatre groups, prepared two theatre focusing the issues of

  1. Access
  2. Mobility
  3. Education
  4. Employment
  5. Equal opportunities
  6. Joint Action by the disabled people

After the training the theatre teams started the performances at the public places and in the seminars, meetings and forums organized by Harmony Foundation and other organizations. Till now six performances have been performed. The theatre is a very effective tool for raising awareness and making people understand the issues of disabled people. The kind of theatre Harmony Theatre Groups are performing is called Interactive Theatre in which the viewers also perform to correct the error purposely presented in the theatre. In this way the viewers also become the part of the theatre and the issue.

Success:

Mian Mohammad Rafiq, member Provincial Assembly, announced in the advocacy meeting which was also attended by the media person, that he will present a bill in the provincial assembly based on our working paper. The media also gave this news in the newspapers. (a copy of the newspaper is attached).

Six other Members of the Provincial assembly has announced to support the bill.

Choudhry Muhammad Hafeez, District Education Officer Toba Tek Singh, said that he will select teachers for the Inclusive Education Training and will also cooperate with Harmony Foundation in promotion of the concept of Inclusive Education.

The media persons who attended the media conference and other programs has got the understanding of the inclusive language and many of them use the words and terminology that promotes the concept of equal rights for the disabled people in the society.