Impact for One, Impact for All

Friday, December 4, 2015

For Nona Mzhavandze, 59, sending her granddaughter Mariam off to preschool means more than just picking out her outfits and making breakfast. It has meant hours of meetings with social workers, teachers and an inclusive specialist. And it means that her granddaughter will improve her life-skills and not be isolated from society.

Mariam is three years old and was born with spastic paraplegia. She has multiple disabilities: intellectual, physical, and communicative. Mariam, whose grandmother takes care of her when her parents are working, lives in a socially vulnerable family. Her one and a half year old sister is also disabled, and social support and disability pension are not enough to provide the girls with the medical help they need.

Doctors advised Mariam’s family to begin the process of socialisation for their daughter, but it was hard to do since she was too small for kindergarten and the family had no information on whether or not a child with a disability could actually attend preschool.

In May of 2015, World Vision Georgia advised the Baghdati kindergarten union to hire an Inclusive Preschool Education and Development Specialist (IPEDS), who would coordinate outreach for children with disabilities (CwDs), and work with their parents/caregivers to educate them on the benefits of inclusive preschool education.

 This work allowed Mariam the unique opportunity to enroll in the kindergarten in their village of Rokhi, Georgia, where staff had received training from the IPEDS. Mariam was welcomed into a friendly and developmentally appropriate atmosphere, where the development specialist, along with a kindergarten caregiver, worked enthusiastically to produce results.

 According to Nona, “[Mariam] could not speak, move her hand, eat, or play without help. I could hardly stop crying when I saw her frustration, looking through the window watching other children play in the yard.” But following her sessions with the specialist and kindergarten staff, Mariam started to act a bit differently. “Five days ago Mariam tried to eat porridge herself. I took the spoon to feed [her] but she took it from my hand and started eating herself. It was my biggest joy!”Nona says that Mariam now plays with toys together with other children. She has started communicating with peers, expressing her feelings with sounds, and showing emotions like joy.

 Inclusive preschool education was advocated for and has begun to be developed in two regions of Georgia. World Vision Georgia has funded and supported the hire of two IPEDS.  The specialists provide consultancy services for municipality kindergartens and are reporting to the Kindergarten Union (a municipal structure).

 As initially negotiated and agreed upon with local governments of each municipality, if the initiative proves and continues to be effective, municipalities will assume funding of the IPEDS' salaries and sustain them as a part of the system. This shift in responsibility is an issue that has been strongly advocated for by WVG, and so far, in the first two to three months, the initiative has been deemed essential, efficient and successful by WVG and local government representatives, kindergarten union employees and kindergarten practitioners.

 Tamuna Kiknavelidze, an education specialist in Baghdati, says that the parents of children “are quite active, and they are generally satisfied with the inclusive process at kindergartens, although there are several parents who talk less about their child’s needs and avoid sharing information.” She says that a lack of information can make it difficult to ascertain a child's exact needs, but that in the beginning this is common. “This is a related process, which gradually changes into full acceptance and higher involvement.”

 As far as Nona is concerned, the process has already been a success: “I believe that Mariam, with the support of inclusive specialists and kindergarten specialists, will become joyful and happy like other children.” Hopefully, with similar programming models implemented across the country, Mariam will be one of many.