Newsletter –
July 2010
Lessons
from South Africa that help change lives in Kosovo
Jenny Altschuler, One to One Children’s Fund Clinical
Director, visited Kosovo where the Charity has been centrally involved
in helping traumatised children in Kosovo since 1999.
Until now, we have been prioritising helping individuals and families
come to terms with the consequences of the war, family break-up, bereavement
and abuse. We are now undertaking a major project for children with
special needs, funded by a grant from the European Commission, with
additional assistance from the Medicor Foundation.
On my most recent
visit, I was joined by Jos Horwitz, a special needs teacher and head
of education for the Herzlia schools in Cape Town. Jos has been pivotal
in helping us integrate children with special needs at the One to One
funded nursery and primary schools in the Vrygrond township. Jos came
to help our staff in Kosovo reflect on the ways in which their practice
has had to shift to develop our work for children with special needs
- children with conditions like downs syndrome, autism, epilepsy, significant
learning disability, and paralysis.
The centres have had to be remodelled
as family day units to meet the needs of children with special needs.
Ramps have been fitted, toilets altered, floors have been recovered
with surfaces that are easier to wipe, there are toys and other equipment
aimed at extending the children’s sensory experiences and learning,
and the environment is warm and inviting.
However, as important as the
setting may be, any project is only as good as the staff it employs
– and we are enormously fortunate to have an enthusiastic, energetic
and creative team of psychologists and psychosocial counsellors. Over
the two days, Jos helped the staff (a group of 8 counsellors and psychologists)
explore their own ideas about disability and how this impacts on the
work as well as providing input on ways of working with this group of
children and their families.
As might be expected, many children were
contending with a wide range of other challenges as well, including
the consequences of their parents’ acrimonious divorce, physical or
sexual abuse, economic hardship and the untimely death of a parent.
This was reflected in discussions about work with a mother and grandmother
who had resorted to disciplining a young child who was cognitively impaired
as a result of uncontrolled epilepsy, by hitting her with a stick.
These
discussions also revealed that although the war ended more than ten
years ago, scratch the surface and painful stories emerge – stories
of family members who were killed in the war, whose whereabouts are
not known, have migrated and who are still struggling to deal with the
phenomenal disruption the war caused to their lives.
Jenny Altschuler
Clinical Director
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