Project 2009 – "Harmonization" Summer Camp

Executive Summary
“Harmonization” Summer Camp (HSC09) is a charity and volunteer project, which was approved for grants by The Davis Projects for Peace to be implemented during the summer of 2009.

HSC09 realizes the deprivation of attention and services that children with intellectual disabilities (CID) in Hanoi are receiving from the society, including little access to sufficient education and future preparedness, making them one of the most vulnerable groups in the country. Keeping their urgent needs in mind, we aspire to enhance the lives of children with intellectual disabilities by providing them with essential life skills to integrate into a social-oriented community.

Approach
“Harmonization” Summer Camp
In partnership with Binh Minh Elementary School, an institution that offers special needs education for CID, HSC09 is implemented as a 4-day summer camp at a suburban area of Hanoi (location TBA). The summer camp, divided into 2 separate sessions, hosts a series of leisure and recreational activities, which attempts to promote independence, self-esteem and social skills of children with intellectual disabilities by pairing each of them with one student from high schools and colleges. The students will volunteer to act as mentors as they lead the children into a more socially integrated environment.

During the summer camp, each pair will share a room and do most group activities together, with a view to encourage communication, mutual support and teamwork among CID and the students:

• Arts and hand-crafts: art offers CID an alternate means of communication and expression. It is often used by special education teachers to foster the child’s creativity and openness to concepts, feelings, and most significantly, self-expression.
• Physical activities: these activities help to reinforce CIDs’ concepts of effort, achievement and success and enhance their self-esteem.
• Outdoor activities: these activities will give the participants opportunities to experience life from a different and fresh angle, and also allow them to socialize with friends while enjoying the countryside air.
• Other entertainment activities, such as overnight camping, bonfire, talent shows.

Participants will include:

• 30 children with intellectual disabilities (15 per session), whose age range is 11 – 22.
• 30 students from high schools and universities in Hanoi (15 per session). Student volunteers are selected through an application process, based on their past commitment to community services. In order to apply to be a student volunteer, please click here.
• 8 coordinators (2 general directors, 3 special needs teachers and 3 parents) who will conduct and supervise all activities of participants.

Information Website
There is little availability of information in Vietnamese on intellectual disabilities on the Internet to parents and special needs teachers who want to learn more about the condition or needs to share about their problems or experience with CID. HSC09 aims to develop a website, which serves as a comprehensive source of information and knowledge on intellectual disabilities and potentially, an online forum that hosts discussions and sharing ideas among parents and teachers.

Objectives

• Provide CID with essential life and social skills so that they learn to be more self-sufficient and independent in order to approach a more integrated and social community.
• Help Binh Minh Elementary School to develop an effective curriculum that encourages integration between its CIDs and efficiently-developed children and students.
• Provide the high school students with an opportunity to a life-altering experience and to encourage a positive and healthy lifestyle through community-oriented activities.
• Raise social awareness of people with intellectual disabilities and calls for the society’s attention upon their situation.