Our society has always been compassionate towards the handicapped.
Compassion is the biggest insult for the handicapped. It’s not that our
society is bad, it just does not know how to treat a handicapped
person. The main reason for this has to do with the fact there is a big
barrier between the handicapped and non-handicapped. Many parents think
that if their child is handicapped, then the only way of protecting
that child is to isolate him or her from society and raise him in an
environment where he or she is surrounded by other handicaps. Of
course, this is not the right solution and many countries in the world
today have come to the conclusion that handicapped and non-handicapped
children must learn, work and live together so that they can become
good people in the end.
In September of 2003, the «Eastern Mission» Danish humanitarian
organization, along wiht the «Bridge of Hope» NGO, the Ministry of
Education and Sciences and the National Institute of Education, has
created a special educational program in which children with physical
or mental defects will have the right to study in any education system
of Armenia. This year, Armenian experts have planned out subjective
standards with a German international adviser Klaus Yan. The plan
consists of two parts: standards for relatively normal and high level
retarded children and children who learn with difficulty. These
standards are foreseen for elementary school students. In August of
this year, the Ministry of Education and Sciences has confirmed the
application of the standards in ten schools.
More than 40 teachers have already been trained. The standards for the
special students studying in the 5th-9th grade will be planned out and
be applied in the beginning of April 2005. The project, which will end
in 2007, is financed by the Foreign Ministry of Holland.
«Education has to be for everyone,» said director of the «Eastern
Mission» special education program Raffi Dudaklyan. «Our main goal is
to raise the level of education for handicapped children. At the
present, we are working with ten schools and we plan on making those
schools models for others to come. Besides the special standards, these
schools need to be remodeled, all the teachers need to be trained,
parents need to actively participate in the school activities, and the
school structure must be appropriate for the handicapped. During the
process of teaching, teachers must not draw their attention on the
child’s defects, but rather his or her abilities. We must do our job
efficiently so that society changes its attitude towards the
handicapped. There have been times when we have met with families where
14 handicapped children had been imprisoned in the house because the
parents were ashamed to take them outside. This says a lot about the
intolerance of our society. It is not a shame to be handicapped, it is
not a crime, it is simply a tragedy. We have another problem: we must
change the mentality of society. As a matter of fact, we have noticed
that in the ten schools, the non-handicapped students are more tolerant
towards the handicapped children.»