Providing transportation for disabled students
Project location: Jordan
Project start date: December 2005 -
Project end date: May 2006
Project number: 2005-36
Beneficiary: YMWA Centre for Special Education
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YMWA Centre for Special Education (the centre) is the largest centre of its kind catering for children with intellectual disabilities.
The centre is a non-profit, voluntary organisation dedicated to providing a dignified life for disadvantaged Jordanians through empowering students with intellectual disabilities.
The Centre is the only organisation that provides comprehensive services for students with intellectual disabilities from early childhood until adulthood.
It was the first to provide vocational training through production for adults with intellectual disabilities. The centre graduated 14 generations of successful workers placed in various jobs in the community.
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The diverse training students receive enable them to pursue their interests through six different programmes; namely, horticulture, recycling, woodworking, weaving, ceramics and catering. As such, the centre maintains its leading role as the region's prime vocational training school.
YMWA Centre for Special Education's advocacy work helped change negative attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities. In addition, the administration's active involvement with policy makers has helped amend laws pertaining to providing the rights for education and a decent life for those with intellectual disabilities.
Staff members are continuously kept up-to-date through workshops and training sessions.
The student body is primarily comprised of children from poor and vulnerable families. Therefore, the total amount of annual tuition fees the centre receives barely covers 10-15% of the its running cost.
The centre provides a nutritious meal at lunch time since most students come from very poor families. In addition, the centre provides its students with sufficient clothing and sends aid to their families whenever possible.
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The centre's outreach focuses on providing early intervention and training for mothers of children with intellectual disabilities at a very early age through its home based Portage Programme.
Being the region's primary school providing education for student with intellectual disabilities, the centre has a long waiting list of students desperately in need of its services. Thus, the project consisted in extending the centre's services through expanding its student enrolment as well as fine tuning the quality of services provided to current students. As such, the centre needed an additional vehicle to be able to cater for its student body. The students come from all areas in Amman. Transportation for the students was crucial since the student body is mainly comprised of children from poor families with no means for transportation otherwise available. As such, the project funded by the Nando Peretti Foundation provided one bus which could cater for 51 passengers.
