Awareness of children with learning differences has grown enormously over the last 5 years in Lebanon thanks to LSESD’s SKILD and our partners. Now awareness is starting to spread to another Arab country: Jordan.
The first ever Inclusive Education Forum in Jordan took place in Amman on 14 August. At this historic event, SKILD launched a new book providing essential information on many forms of learning differences including Autism Spectrum Disorder, Dyslexia, Speech Impairment, ADHD, Mental Impairment, Trauma and Stressor-Related Disorders, Hearing Impairment, and Visual Impairment, and possible solutions and therapies to help treat them.
Inclusive Classrooms for Community Flourishing has been produced by SKILD and Biola University in the United States in collaboration with California State University in Fullerton, California Polytechnic State University in Ponoma, and Haigazian University in Lebanon and printed by LSESD’s publishing house Dar Manhal Al Hayat. Around 20 experts from these universities and SKILD Center have each written a chapter. The book provides strategies for inclusion in schools and tips for teachers and parents to help in dealing with children with learning differences. It also includes capacity building exercises, workshops, cases studies and trainings making it a practical as well as an academic book. Inclusive Classrooms for Community Flourishing is dedicated to parents, teachers, and the entire Arab world. It seeks to encourage a culture of acceptance of others and decrease the feeling of failure many special needs children in the region feel.
“This book is part of a long, continuous journey we began seven years ago in Lebanon. Today we launch it with our partners in Jordan so that the snowball keeps growing to relieve special needs learners from marginalization in all Arab countries,” said Dr Nabil Costa, Chief Executive Officer of SKILD and LSESD, at the launch. “We want to move from sympathy to rights. We are not doing charity work – this is the right of every citizen, to be cared for and empowered by the state. We should believe in the concept of change.”
“We dedicate this book to every parent facing difficulties with their children, to every child who is enriching our communities with his/her difference, and to every organization that focuses on special needs work,” he added.
SKILD’s involvement in Jordan is set to continue long after the Inclusive Education Forum. We are working on another project with the Jordanian Higher Council for Affairs of Persons with Disabilities, specifically with HRH Prince Mired bin Ra’ad, that will make Jordan all-inclusive in 10 years.
Inclusive Classrooms for Community Flourishing will be launched in Lebanon in autumn 2018.