Vision and Mission
Vision
Our vision is to support and counsel children with a mental disability on Bali in their development and participation to society under the motto:
Not less, but differently gifted!
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Children with a mental disability have their own qualities and the right to be who the are and to develop themselves as much as possible with these qualities.
Our basic assumption and our aspiration is the participation to society as an equal person. In the social expressions of contact, communication, playing and belonging. And in the practical expressions of school and adapted jobs.
Mission
We establish this by mobilising Dutch resources, knowledge and expertise and put it to the disposal of parents, counsellors, teachers and other interested people on Bali. Our mission is to transfer the resources in that way, that they can apply and transfer this themselves in the future. Thereby, the quality of the guidance, support and education of these children will be increased structurally.
It is not our purpose to copi the Dutch situation, but to collaborate with the Balinese and to connect to their culture and way of working.
We don’t exclude children with a mental disability from our vision and mission. Therefore, children with a very low ‘level’ or physical disability next to their mental disability are included as well.
For the play-learn classes, we impose an age boundary of seven years old (from 0 years), because from that age there is a special needs pre-school in Bali. With the exception of children who cannot enter the special needs pre-school because of their low mental level or physical disability.
1. The play-learn groups
The programme and the counselling of the play-learn classes, which are combined with their parents, are focused on teaching the parents how to play and work with their children. Thereby we want to increase the knowledge of the parents concerning relevant issues.
In this program, the Balinese employees and the volunteers are working together. The main goal of this project is to hand over the tasks to the Balinese employees in order to maintain the foundation and the work themselves.
The parents are the target group in this program. The parents are eventually responsible for the entire education of their child. Sometimes, the parents are not participating in the classes, because it is good for the children to learn independently. In the classes the level of knowledge of the children is taken into account and anticipated on and their development is stimulated. The tinkering and playing which the parents do with their child during class is adapted to the child’s level and personal goals. The Balinese employees and the volunteers are supporting them.
2. Support
Support means that the volunteers on Bali and in Holland do whatever they can to help. Not more and not less. This is because of the available time and capacity of the volunteers. As well in the amount of work that can be done and our expertise with relation to the methods and the approach.
We pursuit a higher level every time, by recording what has been done and learned en by transmitting the knowledge and records to the next group of volunteers and the Balinese employees.
We are proud of everything that can be performed, offered and reached!
In practice this means that a volunteer can work with every child, with all capabilities the child has, even when these capabilities are not clear or not developed that well. There might be worked on stimulation of the senses or to let the child get accustomed to a new surrounding. The only development visible might be the contact between parents, partners in distress. There is always something that can be reached, the rest will develop later on.
New ideas, knowledge and entrances can be developed by doing research. This can be found with the children, parents, colleagues, in books and with the people in Holland. In Holland can be searched for specific information or we can sent a case to other experts to gain ideas, knowledge and hints.
Up front there is no measurement of what should be offered or what specific expertise is needed to start working with a child and his parents. Especially not because the parents are present in the play-learn groups.
3. Development
Development can be seen as the increase of capabilities in all development areas (social, cognitive and motorial). We see development in a broader perspective: for instance increasing reactions to stimulations, the increasing joy and health, the increasing contact with the parents or the increasing acceptation of the child by their parents, family and surrounding.
Every child is therefore teachable on their own level and with that vision every child can develop himself, as long as the family members keep approaching and stimulating the child.
4. Participation to society
Here we repeat the explanation of our vision:
Children with a mental disability have their own qualities and the right to be who the are and to develop themselves as much as possible with these qualities.
Our basic assumption and our aspiration is the participation to society as an equal person. In the social expressions of contact and communication, playing and belonging. And in the practical expressions of school and adapted jobs.
The above stated explains why we think it is so important to include the parents, family and surrounding of the child in the counselling and supporting of the child and why we don’t start a 24-hour care centre under the counselling of professionals. We think that life gets a meaning in the meeting with fellow human beings. This has the purpose to know and being known by others and to give and get love.
From the play-learn classes can be determined if a child can move up to special needs education or regular pre-schools. Balinese teachers and volunteers can be an intermediary to help the parents and find a suitable place in a school for the child.
5. To mobilise resources and expertise and put this to the disposal of parents, counsellors, teachers and other interested people
The most important goal here is to build on the availability of this expertise in a stable and solid way, with the knowledge and professionalism a new volunteer brings along. This development is done mostly on the job, by collaborating with and showing the parents and Balinese teachers. They will become experts by experiencing it. We know this will work, because a lot of parents in Holland with a child in physiotherapy, speech therapy, play-learn classes and special needs education experienced the expertise of the professionals and learned to do it themselves.
Furthermore, we are building on the development of the teach-the-teacher programme. This is done by the recording, translating, transmitting and by sharing the knowledge, parts of the programme, methods and materials that can be used in the classes of (young) children. In that way that later generations can build on our material and resources. This is not done in one day, but step by step. The knowledge base is growing when projects are performed in practice. It is important to do this from the start in a structured way and to create an overview in the knowledge and resource base.
6. To transmit the knowledge and apply yourself in the future
The speed of the developments illustrated in the above is unknown. Our main goal is to withdraw on the locations and transmit all tasks to the Balinese in 5 years. This means that the Balinese should perform their tasks themselves by then and they have be able to transmit it themselves over time.
7. Structural
When time is right, we will, in collaboration with the Balinese teachers and the Balinese foundation ‘Yayasan Bidadari (= angel) Bali’, approach the government to establish that they will support, formalise and finance the work and education of the Balinese counsellors and teachers. Only than can be spoken about a structural improvement of the counselling and the education of children with a mental disability. We are on the beginning of a lot of projects, but it is indeed our long term focus which guided us from the beginning with the organization and forming of our projects.
In the meantime a fantastic development is put in motion by the support of the Balinese entrepreneurs. There are three restaurant chains who adopted our projects and offer the possibility to inform tourists, local guests, and contacts about our activities and thereby raise money. A silver ware chain has promised to support us with money. There are contacts with the Rotary from the north and from Ubud. Furthermore the revenues are growing from donations of visitors of the projects as the foundation becomes widely known.
8. Linking to the Balinese Culture and way of working
How we can do this our very best, can only be learned and experienced in practice. What can we do and what not? Where are our boundaries? When is our way of working in the classes running to much apart from the regular Indonesian education? What are the results of a beautifully decorated and colourful classroom? When are parents dropping of? When are they feeling well with something new and different? When will they start believing in our spirit and goals?
The only thing we can do is staying in contact, testing and evaluating our programmes with our Balinese teachers. We have to recognise and rectify the inevitable mistakes and go on. We can learn from people who have more expertise and knowledge in this profession and transfer these knowledge to new volunteers by using formalised records and so on. We can alter our vision or ambitions when this might be necessary.
