Georgia: Michaelschule
Sensory room for children with disabilities
A curative-pedagogical school Michaelschule at the Center for Free Pedagogy, is for children with various developmental problems and special needs. One of the goals of the school is to work with pupils, to create conditions for their learning and development and to prepare graduates for a full life in society.
One of the directions of correctional work is sensory integration, which allows to develop the whole system of senses (vestibular, tactile, perception of own movement - large and fine motor skills, visual, auditory, etc.). This is an extremely important and necessary aspect of therapy for the pupils of our school, especially for children diagnosed with autism.
The complex of exercises is aimed at overcoming sensory perception disorders and to make the sensations, which are familiar to you and us become for these children familiar and easily achievable.
For realization of such work the school needs appropriate instruments for a special room which we call a sensory room. There are such things as heavy gravity blankets, disks on which you can stand and balance, tunnels in which children can climb, balancing balls, trampoline, rope ladders, different types of lighting, exercise equipment. For all the necessary things we will need an approximately 4.000 euros.
They have started the process of setting up the sensory room and have the basic items that are used regularly. But to be fully functional the school needs to supplement the inventory of this room with the above mentioned tools. Since the school operates mostly on donations, they are not able to pay for the purchase, so sometimes they make the necessary items themselves.
As you may already know, the Michael school started their sensory development project with a sensory garden. With donations from the Waldorf schools last year, they were able to build a sensory path with different surfaces in the garden, plant different aromatic therapeutic plants and start working with the children in this direction, for which they are very grateful to each and every one of you!
About the project:
The Centre of Free Pedagogy started its work in 1991. After seeing the need for curative education, of which in Georgia there was none at the time, the Center founded a curative-pedagogical school for children with special needs in 1994. They named the school after Archangel Michael and is to this day known globally as Michaelschule Tbilisi. The school started with only four classes and has grown over the years. Today there are 9 classes and over 50 pupils.
Besides the Michaelschule the Centre for Free Pedagogy has several initiatives - the curative-pedagogical kindergarten "Mzeshina" for children with special needs, a Waldorf kindergarten, a day centre for children and young adults, several workshops and a psychological-educational diagnostic centre which offers individual therapy for children. All in all, there are more than 90 children and young adults and 34 employees.
Amongst Center’s workshops are sawing workshop, bookbinding workshop, educational kitchen and bakery and educational café, where our young adults are learning how to work in a café, receive guests, orders, prepare coffee and tea, and deal with money. The skills that they will learn here will give them opportunity to start work and have independence in their future.