Educational Support Program (ESP)
Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation Armenia

Project Title: From capacity building towards better inclusion for children with disabilities in Armenia

Partners:
Mission East is a Danish international relief and development non-governmental organization operating in Armenian since October 1992. (Address: St. Saryan 6, apt. 4, Yerevan, Armenia; Telephone: (37410) 521534; 56-67-18; e-mail: se@missioneast.am; Website: www. missioneast.org).
“Armenian Center of Education and Health” (ACoEH);St. Nansen 3, New Nork 1st part, Yerevan, Armenia; telephone: (37410) 63 39 13; E-mail: bejanyanarmen@yahoo.com

Target Group and Area
The target group of the project are teachers and children of 31 inclusive schools located in Yerevan, Dilijan, Ijevan, Berd, Noyemberyan, Gavar, Armavir, Stepanavan, Vanadzor, Yeghegnadzor and Artashat. Totally 160 school staff and about 1100 children with disabilities and special educational needs will be directly benefiting from the project.

Goal of the project
The current project’s goal is to enhance universal access and quality to education, and promote equality by ensuring that children with disabilities and other special needs have equal opportunities for access to basic education and social life.

Objectives of the project

1. Improve the organizational and professional capacities of 32 inclusive schools in Armenia and developing new strategies to reach disabled and children with special educational needs (SEN) within inclusive schools
2. Develop a network of inclusive schools and provide their leadership with resources, knowledge and tools to strengthen its professional capacity;
3. Raise awareness in social model of disability in project schools and change the existing prejudice and wrong stereotypes towards children with disabilities and their rights.

Main outputs
- 3-day training module of team building in inclusive schools, with clear guidelines of responsibilities for all those who work with SEN children in an inclusive environment is developed.
- Team building training conducted for 160 teachers from 32 inclusive schools.
- Totally 6 coaching and mentoring of team work in each project school is conducted throughout the course of the project.
- All relevant information, literature, educational and didactic materials, methodological manuals and handbooks, magazines, essays, articles, etc in Armenian language is collected by task group.
- At least 100 named items have been reviewed; categorized, copied and e-versions created to be situated in web site.
- Project partners and NIE organized one week exhibition of educational materials, literature, developmental games and didactic items developed by practitioners and experts locally or published in Armenian language.
- At least 200 schools, interested civil society organizations parents of children with disabilities and special educational needs, relevant governmental institutions and agencies attended the exhibition amde new contacts.
- Information and knowledge about the best practices and lessons learnt from Inclusive Education has been collected and analyzed by experts of the task group.
- Based on analysis the task group developed Universal Organizational Rules of IE.
- ME and BoH lobbied for the official recognition of the Rules by The Government of RA.
- Network of inclusive schools is established after comprehensive discussions with all relevant stakeholders.
- Task group has collected all relevant educational materials, literature, essays, articles in special and inclusive education available in Armenian language (in some cases also in Russian language).
- Web-site of Network of Inclusive Schools is created with data base.
- Web site is used as web-based resource center making specialized information available in Armenian language to general and special education teachers, social workers and psychologists, parents and children.
- 2 lessons of kindness per school is organized and the social workers of the schools are trained how to continue these lessons in all classes.
- 1 seminar for teachers in each school is organized on social model of disability.
- 1 presentation of monthly “Sunflower is organized per school” and 32 schools start to get 10-15 copies of “Sunflower” every month.
- At least 10 children per school corresponds with the monthly and their best articles, stories, etc. are published in the issues.

Outcomes
- The organizational and professional capacities of 32 inclusive schools are improved affecting the improvement of academic achievements of about 1100 disabled and SEN children in 32 inclusive schools and encouraging their equal participation in schools activities.
- The Universal Organizational Rules of Inclusive Education created new strategies to better meet the special educational needs of children within inclusive schools.
- Network of Inclusive Schools strengthened professional capacities of schools provides them with resources, knowledge and tools for on-going cooperation and share of experiences and best practices with partners, professionals and families.
- The attitude of the whole school community towards the children with disabilities and other special needs is considerably changed.

Impact
• The project will have a significant impact on creating equal opportunities for children with disabilities and other special educational needs to access education and social life
• The project will have a significant impact on creating equal opportunities for children with disabilities and other special educational needs to access education and social life.
• Improvement of efficiency in management and planning of Inclusive Education in Armenia both on practice and policy levels.
• Improvement of academic performance of SEN children.
• In addition, the benefits of project will go beyond its direct educational impact on children - the relationship between the school and the community, between teachers, children and their families, among teachers themselves concentrated on a common objective. This strengthens teamwork and increases the level of motivation, which influences everyone’s attitudes and quality of life.