Targeting 48 female
students, the National Center for Community Rehabilitation
concluded lectures about disability in Higher Al-Ramla
School in Gaza. This comes as a part of the plan proposed by
the Awareness Program at the center to the Directory of
Education and which targets both Prep and secondary levels
school students to enlighten them about disability. The
lectures were held with the attendance of A'mal Hussein,
special education supervisor in the Directory of Education,
and 3 lady-teachers.
For 2 days and in the
amount of 2 hours a day, the lectures tackled defining
disability, its causes, types, ways of prevention, and the
importance of considering the individual dissimilarities.
Hani Abu Zaid, rehabilitation consultant in the NCCR, stated
that considering the individual dissimilarities is the first
step for the disabled on the way of having self-confidence,
especially in the field of education, in addition to the
psychological, social and physical aspects of the disabled;
this can be done through preparing teachers to accept and
understand the disabled positively and avoid commenting on
their behavior which might cause negative psychological
impacts on them, and preparing the students to deal with
their disabled colleague without mocking or bias, basically
for their right of living with dignity, not out of sympathy.
Additionally, Abu Zaid
discussed the significant role of the educational advisor
through psychologically preparing the disabled for the
integration and to raise his self-confidence, providing the
students and teachers with the needed skills to accept the
disabled, reducing the negative stereotype of the disabled,
finding the needed facilities for them, and working on
providing them with education aiding materials. Abu Zaid
insisted, also, on the importance of communication between
the educational advisor, family and teachers to engage the
disabled with the scholar activities and following him up.
It is worthy to mention
that the students who attended the lectures were chosen
randomly from the majority of the classes at the school, in
order to form a small and aware society which will reveal
the experience they acquired to the rest of the students,
and then to their families.