Author: lambert

Funded by Momentum Foundation [gallery columns="5" link="file" ids="127,128"] Strengthening inclusion in education in Metro South education District. Inclusive Education policy in South Africa makes provision for children with low to moderate levels of support need to be accommodated in an ordinary Full service school and for children with high level support needs to be accommodated in a Special School. Unfortunately this is not the case and Special schools are overcrowded with long waiting lists and many of their learners should be in mainstream schools. The result is that many learners with high level support needs and complex disabilities find themselves outside of the school system altogether. This projects aims at strengthening 3 local schools in the South Education district to become more inclusive and able to hold onto learners with…

Funded by Department of Social Development and Apex Hi [gallery columns="5" link="file" ids="131,132,133"] Very few ECD Centres in the Western Cape make provision for children with disabilities with the result that enrolment in an early childhood development programme by children with disabilities under the age of 5 years is less than 35%. This means that these young children are not benefitting from early learning which only exacerbates their vulnerability and makes their chances of inclusion in a mainstream school environment even more unlikely. This projects aims at strengthening ECD Centres which show a willingness to include young children with disabilities so that they are equipped to manage diversity in their centres and allow each young child the opportunity to develop to their full potential. The Department of Social Development is…

Funded by Anglo American Chairman's fund [gallery columns="5" link="file" ids="131,132,133"] IESA has received funding form the Anglo American Chairman's fund to begin work on an ECD Programme which comprises two main projects. One programme will identify and strengthen Inclusive ECD Centres - that is centres willing to include young children with disabilities or other special needs. IESA will be supporting and training the staff over an 18 month period as well as paving the way at neighbouring primary schools for inclusion of these children when they are ready to move into primary school. The second project will identify under-resourced ECD Centres where there are particularly vulnerable children who run the risk of not being able to manage with the demands of formal schooling the following year. The Centre will be supplied with…

Funded by the Nussbaum Foundation [gallery columns="5" link="file" ids="138,137,136"] IESA has received funding from the Nussbaum Foundation to open two toy libraries in the Lavender Hill / Capricorn communities. The first will be a toy library housed at a local ECD Centre that will be accessed by surrounding ECD Centres for use in their centres. Over 21 ECD Centres sent delegates on training to learn about how to use toys effectively in child development, the role of play in development and how to correctly identify barriers to learning that children in their centres may be experiencing. Following on from the awareness and advocacy project IESA undertook in the Lavender Hill/ Capricorn are in 2009/2010 a number of children with special learning needs and disabilities were identified. The large majority of these children…

Funded by the Momentum Fund (First Rand Foundation) [gallery columns="5" link="file" ids="144,143,142"] This project has been developed in line with our growing belief that any efforts to encourage and support more inclusive practices will be more successful if whole schools, and to a certain extent whole school communities, can be involved. The Momentum Fund's support for this project reflects their interest in capturing examples of inclusive or "full-service" school practice as a viable alternative that can serve the interests of children affected by disabilities. In this way, it can be seen as a pilot project that can inform future school practices. This project is being carried out over a three year period with four participating schools, 2 rural and 2 urban. They are: Claremont Primary, Fairview Primary, Swartberg Primary -…

Funded by the Department of Social Development [gallery columns="5" link="file" ids="148,147,146"] This project was requested by the Provincial Department of Social Development's Disability Programme in response to an earlier proposal that IESA assist this Department in introducing an inclusive approach to their ECD and community-based services. We were asked to focus on Disability Awareness and Advocacy activities as well as information, advice and support services to families of children with special needs (especially disabilities) in the target area, with the particular aim of improving their access to Early Childhood Development and early formal education. We hope that this project can serve as an example of community-based intervention to raise awareness of the rights and needs of children with disabilities, and can be implemented in other communities and service areas of the…