Rights for all
This rights based project in Almaty works with deaf children, young deaf people and their parents to lobby for change in an education system where 90% of deaf children live in institutions.
Read the learning from experience case study about this project
- Recipient:
- Centre SATR
- Country:
- Kazakstan
- Implementing partner:
- VSO
- Project partners:
- Internat 1
- Internat 5
- Project contact:
-
Mandy Naylor (Centre SATR)
- Start date:
- 12 April 2004
- End date:
- 31 October 2005
- Total budget:
- 2,392,869.00 KZT (�9,539.42)
- Beneficiary type:
- Parents, Young deaf people, School aged children, Pre-school aged children
- Project type:
- Parents' group, Deaf club / youth club, Rights-based, Advocacy, Lobbying, Community based rehabilitation
Summary:
In 2001 in Kazakhstan approximately 90% of deaf children are institutionalised.
Working in partnership with approximately 100 deaf children and families, the project will develop:
- the confidence and skills of young deaf people, deaf children and their parents;
- information resources that will be used in the future;
- a national campaign for inclusion opportunities for deaf children and young people;
- community rehabilitation training for workers and families.
The project will work on three levels to have maximum impact through highlighting rights, developing inclusive CBR programmes and influencing national policy and legislation.
This will ensure direct benefits to families and institutional change.
Aim:
To work alongside deaf children and their families to develop information and training resources that focus on the rights of deaf children and which are based on the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child 1989.
Beneficiaries:
This project has been designed following consultation meetings with a group of 15 young deaf people and the directors of Internats 1 and 5.
- Ten 10-14year olds living in Internats (institutions) will attend group work which will focus on positive idenitiy issues.
- Twelve young deaf people aged between 17 and 21 will be trained to consult with other young deaf on their views and needs and will develop a video and travel to meet government ministers in Astana.
- Ten children under 10 will attend an integrated summer play scheme with 10 hearing children.
- Fifteen parents of deaf children will receive training and establish an advocacy and support group.
- 100 individuals, consisting of parents, internat workers and government officials will also receive training at a two day conference.
Activities:
Activtity 1: "Right to Identity!"
Group work to be completed with a group of ten, 10-14 year olds living in Internats (boarding schools) on positive identity issues including: relationships, communication, education, work, family. Story telling, poetry, dance and photography will be used as the main methods to explore the issues of identity. A link will also be made with a group of hearing young people in a rural area of Southern Kazakhstan to explore common issues of disadvantage and the differences in oppression, aspirations and identity. Centre SATR will document these experiences and they will form part of the training materials for the conference and recommendations for Lobbying Resolution.
Expected Outcomes:
- Young people report increase in self confidence, self-esteem.
- Internat workers incorporate social inclusion methods within their everyday work.
- Internat workers continue to support young people to look at issues of identity and incorporate it into their school curriculum.
- Young people from rural areas report increased knowledge about disability issues and deaf awareness.
- Training materials utilised by other NGOs
- Conference is attended by a wide range of professionals Internat and Centre SATR staff develop group work skills.
- Young people's recommendations included in National Government Social Care Plan.
Activity 2: "Right to be listened to!"
Group work to be completed with twelve young people aged 17 - 21 working at Centre SATR on communication and decision making issues. This group will be trained to consult with other young deaf people on their views and needs and will develop training, lobbying and public awareness materials on the social issues affecting young deaf people. This group will lead the development of a video and will travel to meet Government Ministers in Astana to present the consultation findings and lobbying resolution as part of a Round Table with Ministers of Education and Labour and Social Protection.
Expected Outcomes:
- Young people report increase in self confidence, self-esteem.
- Young people develop the skills and knowledge to form their own self advocacy, young people's deaf club supported by Centre SATR Social Pedagogue.
- Young people develop a sustainable relationship with other young people in UK.
- Training materials utilised by other NGOs
- Conference is attended by a wide range of professionals
- Young people's recommendations included in National Government Social Care Plan.
Activity 3: "Right to play!"
Group work to be completed with ten children under 10 years old. This will focus on friendships and increasing leisure opportunities. This will be achieved through a six week Summer play scheme involving 10 deaf children and 10 hearing children, exploring issues of commonality and difference through methods such as team games, environmental art, art and drama, visits to places of interest, dance, music, story telling etc. Children will examine issues of friendships, oppression, disability awareness, positive play and these will be included in training materials.
Expected Outcomes:
- Young people report increase in self confidence, self-esteem.
- Young people have fun.
- Young people develop friendships with other young people.
- Training materials utilised by other NGOs
- Conference is attended by a wide range of professionals.
- Young people's recommendations included in National Government Social Care Plan.
- Internat workers and Centre SATR staff develop group work and inclusive play skills.
Activity 4: Support and Advocacy for Parents
Fifteen parents will be involved in the project. They were keen to be involved from the start with one parent commenting that the project was "something that helps us in a practical way." However, Internats have previously had difficulty in engaging parents in their work and therefore it will be one of the main challenges of the project to maintain the involvement of parents.Training will be developed as the course progresses by VSO Volunteer and Internat Workers, with input from parents.
The training will focus on issues of confidence building, self and peer advocacy, lobbying skills, social inclusion and community support. Future training will be developed by parents themselves to ensure that it is relevant and continues to meets their needs.As a result of this training a parents advocacy and support group will be established so that parents can share experiences, gain information and lobby for change. This will initially be facilitated by the VSO Volunteer and Internat Workers and will eventually be fully facilitated by Internat workers.
The VSO Volunteer will have a Russian speaking interpreter and there will also be Kazakh speaking workers (as some parents have Kazakh as their first language) from Centre SATR and the Internat. Information produced and gained from parents will inform the training pack and conference content. Parents travel expenses will be reimbursed by the project and future funding will be sought to continue to financially support this group of parents once the project has ended.
Expected Outcomes:
- Parents gain in confidence and knowledge about deaf issues and support services available.
- Parents begin to be involved in decision making processes about their children, through self advocacy and peer advocacy.
- Parents have skills make the support group self sustainable and administrative costs of group shared by partners.
- Parents gain in confidence through delivery of training at conference.
Activity 5: A two day participatory training course
This course will include a diverse range of officials, professionals and parents. Activities 1-4 will develop a two day participatory training course with performances and presentations from deaf children and their families. There will also be workshops looking at how to implement changes and improve the lives of deaf children.
Expected Outcomes:
- Young people report increase in self confidence, self-esteem.
- Awareness Raising on many levels that highlights the rights and needs of disabled children.
- Internat workers, Centre SATR Staff young people and parents increase in confidence and training and presentation skills.
- Training materials utilised by other NGOs
- Conference is attended by a wide range of professionals
- Informal network between deaf children parents, organisations and professionals develop.
Activity 6: National Lobbying
Centre SATR is the lead NGO that is involved in the development of the National Plan for Social Reform in Kazakhstan and will ensure that all recommendations are fed into this Central Planning Forum. Centre SATR's current lobbying objectives are social inclusion, early intervention and children's rights.
Expected Outcomes:
- Views of deaf children, young deaf people and parents of deaf children taken into account in the National Plan for Social Reform.
Achievements:
This project had a signficant impact on children, young people and parents.
- The Right to Identity residential for school aged children living in Internats. This workshop used drama, art, music and dance to raise self-esteem and explore the issues faced in the school. It was vital that the Internat workers were involved in the process and whilst they initially found the style of the group work difficult, they were involved in the planning and delivery of the sessions and have become much more committed to the process. In particular the children were able to raise issues about how they are treated at school and the project staff were able to discuss this with the Internat workers and are now monitoring this. Lobbying postcards and posters were produced by the children and all the children involved in the residential reported "feeling happier about myself". Individual examples show that the project significantly raised the self esteem of the children and improved their social skills.
- The Right to be Listened to group of young deaf people consulted with 45 young hearing impaired and deaf people aged 8-18 and put together a lobbying resolution. The group travelled to Astana to present the resolution at the government Round Table meeting. This was attended by over 25 people including senior members of the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection and the Ministry of Health and key deaf organisations from Astana. The group were able to present the lobbying resolution to Parliament and were the first group of people ever able to be shown the Parliamentary building. The group was also able to take advantage of the trip to visit a number of deaf organisations and have a separate meeting with the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection to examine the 5 year Ministers plan and to look at how they might address the Rights and needs of disabled people in a more positive way.
The group of young deaf people are very motivated to continue this work and plan to establish their own association so that they can continue to support deaf children and young deaf people in the future.
- The project met with challenges from the Internat director whilst organising the Right to play activities for children. Originally it was planned that a group of deaf and hearing children would participate together, but the Internat director felt that this would not be apppropriate. A very short programme for 2 hours a week for 6 weeks involving art and drama activities was completed. The impact of this activity in promoting awareness and community inclusion was lessened and the project team did their best to raise these concerns with the Dept. of Education, but disappointingly with no real outcomes.
- The parents' course was completed and parents were very active and began to attend regularly. By the last session of the course, 34 parents in total had attended, around 20 consistently. These parents had formed a group that continues to run and has become involved in many of the school's activities and is a forum for consultation and decision making.
- Additional training was undertaken with the senior members of staff in the school so that they began to understand the potential role of the parents group and how to relate with the group. A final one day workshop was completed with parents and senior members of staff on partnership working and conflict resolution. The group has continued to meet regularly since the training ended (10 meetings in total) and has between 8-15 members.
- The parents also worked in partnership with the Kazakh deaf association to develop a communication guide. This gives families ideas about how to include their deaf children within the family and find ways of communication. This guide has been distributed to every registered parent in the region and to other deaf associations throughout Kazakhstan so that it can be reproduced and distributed further.
The project organised a national conference to disseminate some of the lessons learnt: the young people involved in the project chose to host the first “National Youth Deaf Conference†in Kazakhstan.
- 33 young people from all over the country attended to examine the issues that were affecting the whole country.
- young people took part in 2 days of workshops and then partner organisations, parents and press were invited on the final afternoon to debate the issues raised in the conference and to develop an action plan for the way forward.
- the conference was evaluated by young people as a great success with many young people, particularly those from outside of Almaty, who had never having been involved in a youth activity previously.
This gained momentum for the idea of a National Youth organisation and many young people eloquently expressed the reasons why this is needed:
- Young people discovered that there were huge differences in entitlements, services and opportunities depending on where you lived within the Country. A lack of fairness and consistency could be one issue that a National organisation could effectively challenge;
- Young people reported that most Deaf Associations focus on the needs and the issues of adults with very few resources and services being developed specifically for children;
- The third and most disturbing reason was that many young people believed and stated that they felt that deaf associations were also corrupt. Consequently they felt that they would better advocate for their own interests and those of other young people within their own association.
The project generated a lot of interest and raised awareness amongst the general public (through 2 short television programmes being made and 12 newspaper articles being published) and other governmental and non-governmental organisations. In addition, Centre SATR itself has also considered in more detail the needs of families and has equipped its offices with a family room containing play facilities, information library, refreshments, computer equipment and video equipment. Funding has been secured to ensure that this facility can provide training, support groups, legal advice and information for the next two years.
In addition, through partnership working the project also supported the Kazakh Deaf Society to gain a grant that enabled them to put on free sign language courses for parents. Already 46 parents have accessed this course with a further 29 on waiting lists for future courses. By March 2007 it is envisaged that 100 parents will have completed free courses at both beginners and intermediate standard.
