Miory Regional Executive Committee
The handover of a certificate for equipment for a mobile resource room was held at the Vitebsk Regional Center for Corrective-Developmental Education and Rehabilitation. This will facilitate conducting sessions with children suffering from severe health conditions across various regions of the Pridvinie area.
The meeting was attended by Vyacheslav Durnov, Deputy Chairman of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee; Dmitry Khoma, Head of the Main Department of Education of the Regional Executive Committee; representatives of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Belarus; and JSC Priorbank.
The mobile resource room will be equipped with a speech therapist’s “smart mirror”, noise-reducing headphones, communication devices, magnifiers, training simulators, standing frames, and play kits. It will travel to locations where such resources are most urgently needed. The equipment will assist specialists, parents, and legal guardians in the rehabilitation and comprehensive development of children with disabilities and other conditions that complicate daily life and social integration. Consequently, children from various parts of the Pridvinie region will gain greater opportunities to acquire new knowledge, master essential skills, and develop practical abilities.
“Today, we are identifying new approaches, techniques, and work formats utilizing modern equipment to enable more accurate assessment of situations and provide better assistance to families with children with disabilities,” explained Marina Fedorova, Director of the Regional Center for Corrective-Developmental Education and Rehabilitation.
The amount invested in assistive and rehabilitation equipment totaled 50,000 Belarusian rubles. Equipment for the mobile resource room was acquired under the humanitarian project “Prevention of Institutionalization and Deinstitutionalization of Young Children and Children with Disabilities in the Vitebsk Region” and its program “Family for Every Child”, which is implemented jointly with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) with the financial support of JSC “Priorbank” and LLC “Raiffeisen-Leasing”, as well as through voluntary donations. This is a highly significant initiative aimed at helping children with disabilities residing in boarding schools return to their families or find a new home, fostering the development of alternative forms of care for minors, and ideally minimizing the number of children placed in residential institutions. After all, growing up at home alongside loving and caring adults is always preferable – a fact hardly anyone would dispute.
“There are quite a number of children with disabilities and developmental disorders in our region,” noted Vyacheslav Durnov. “They require special care and targeted work. Today we saw how our children skillfully showcased their creative performances. It is very important to identify each child’s unique strengths and nurture their abilities. And, of course, the new equipment will facilitate this process – allowing us to identify children’s difficulties and challenges at an early stage and determine what kind of support is required for families raising such children.”
Vyacheslav Durnov emphasized that a key advantage of the new resource room is its mobility.
“Not all parents have the opportunity to bring their children here, to the Center for Corrective and Developmental Education and Rehabilitation. However, specialists will now be able to travel directly to the districts to meet with families,” he clarified.
The Representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Belarus, Rustam Khaidarov, expressed confidence that the implementation of the "Family for Every Child" program in the Vitebsk Region will very soon yield positive results. He stated that cooperation aimed at the full integration of children with disabilities into society will continue. Regarding specific initiatives, two inclusive playgrounds are planned for installation in our region—in Vitebsk and Polotsk. This will enable children to play together regardless of their health conditions.
Source: vitebsk-region.gov.by