This was indeed a very precious, enriching and eye-opening learning journey for me, both to learn about the Special-Need Education Development in Israel as well as the historical, cultural and other aspects of the Nation of Israel.
It was enriching too as we share our knowledge and experiences with people from different parts of the world who are working in similar field. It is heart warming to meet people with same passion we shared in common. One of the most beneficial aspects of my trip was the professional visits we had to different schools and organizations.
During my visit to " Yad Hamoreh school" located in Jerusalem, I was amazed by their integration program they have for students with communication disabilities (Autism Spectrum Disorder), functioning in the mid to low range into their main stream school program. Students with Autism learn and work together with typically developing students in various lessons such as physical education lesson, music, dance, sports, cooking and arts. The visit to " Yad Hamoreh" school gave me an insight and idea on how an inclusion program in my own country could be implemented.
The professional visit to " Knafaim shel Krembo", a youth movement for children with special needs, helped me to understand the strong culture of volunteerism in Israel.
Besides professional visits, I also enjoyed lectures conducted by very experienced lecturers from special education and other social service sectors. I especially enjoyed the lectures we had on " Volunteering as a tool", " Effective Presentation" and " Geo Political Situation in Israel".
Upon my return to Myanmar, I have since began to work on incorporating some of the knowledge that I have acquired from the seminar in Eden Centre for Disabled Children, Myanmar, where I am currently volunteering at. We are in the process of setting up a special education 'teachers training institute' to train up and generate the next generation of special education teachers in Myanmar. In our country, there is a currently only one government special school which was established 40 years ago. There is no local institution or centre which offer any training for new teachers in special education. The knowledge current teachers has were acquired from occasional and one off workshops or trainings offered by volunteers or from overseas. In our current project of setting up a special need teachers training institute, we managed to rallied a pool of local volunteer facilitators who have a wealth of experience in their respective field of special education to pioneer this project together with us, Eden.
In summary, I would like to express my gratitude to the His Excellency the Ambassador of the Embassy of Israel in Myanmar and its dedicated officers, the MASHAV - Israel's Agency for International Development Cooperation, the staffs from The A. Ofri International Training Centre for all their collaborative effort to make this precious learning journey possible for me.
The above story was shared by Naw Eh Moo, Occupational Therapist from Eden Centre for Disabled Children. She is sharing her beautiful memory during her participation in an International Seminar on " Special & Inclusive Education" taken place in Israel from 12 january to 7th February 2014.Thanks so much Naw Eh Moo for her enjoyable story.