From Perkins to Armenia with Mission of Inclusion

According to Udovicic, with the Velvet Revolution, in Armenia, the government mandated inclusion for all children. Previously, children with disabilities attended special schools and did not mix with non-disabled students.

“We do work on strengthening inclusion,” she said. “They abandoned all the special schools and transformed them into support centers and all schools became inclusive.”

There are a few exceptions that remain, including a special school for the blind, “which we are helping the government to transform it into a resource center that will serve all the visually impaired children in inclusive settings in the country,” Udovicic explained.

She added that she and her team work on both regional and national levels. “

“The most impactful one on policy is … when you have complex children with more additional needs, they are homeschooled. They are not in the school,” Udovicic explained.

When the term homeschooling is used in this context, they mean that for most children with complex disabilities, a teacher goes to the children’s homes once a week. “But we want those children to be in the schools,” Udovicic added.

She said they have piloted homeschool programs in Armenia. “We’ve created a curriculum for them, like what we have on the Perkins campus. We did a lot of training with the staff. Together with the teachers in the pilot model classrooms we are writing the guidelines,” she added.

“Now it’s not really the case. It says inclusion but they [schools] are not equipped enough to provide the appropriate education,” Udovicic said.

She added there are plans to advocate for fully inclusive education nationwide in the National Assembly.

“We see that as a challenge in Armenia and all the countries to implement at the school level what the policy sets,” Gissara noted. “In Armenia, the policy is there but it is in the implementation where there are challenges. That is the gap that Perkins is filling in Armenia.”

“They did not have the technical know-how how to do it,” Udovicic said, concurring.

The three pilot classrooms in Armenia that are fully inclusive are in Yerevan, Gyumri and Ararat for a total of 16 children. They are the John Kirakosyan School #20, in the Kentron district of Yerevan, Basic School #100, public school in Ajapnyak administrative district of Yerevan and Basic school #15, in Shirak Region, Gyumri, where Udovicic and her team have implemented a program to “support the inclusion of children with multiple disabilities in inclusive classrooms.”

“We equip the classrooms, we equip the teachers, we work with the teacher on each step and document it and put it in a guideline for other teachers. We coach them and work with them every two weeks, look at the videos. We also talk to the parents and do an assessment,” Udovicic said. The idea is to take all the information and results and “scale up” from there.

Perkins has 16 local partners in this effort in Armenia. They are: Ararat Center Rays of Hope; Ararat Orphanage Kharberd; Ararat Support Center For You; Armavir School #7; Armavir Support Center Vagharshapat; Lori Support Center of Vanadzor; Shirak Gyumri School #15; Shirak Orphanage Gyumri; Shirak Support Center of Artik; Squniq Support Center of Sisian; Yerevan School #100; Yerevan School #20; Yerevan  Republican Support Center; Yerevan School #14 -School for the Blind; Yerevan Support Center of Yerevan #3 and the Khachatur Abovian Armenian State Pedagogical University.

The team in Armenia directly works with 4,308 children and more than 1,000 educators, Perkins’ staff said.

“Indirectly, through the national initiatives, through training others, we serve 464,000 children,” Gissara added. “The benefit of [finding ways to teach] children with disabilities helps with other kids who are delayed with literacy.”

She added that the children without disabilities benefit from the program by learning about inclusion. “They learn about empathy and communication,” Gissara added.

Society in Armenia can be generally less accepting of people with different abilities. “To be honest, I think yes. I’ve been going to Armenia from the beginning. I did notice a shift. We are really accepted widely,” Udovicic said. For example, there is an inclusive art and sport project. “They all come together when they are coming together and adaptive sports where everyone can participate. They learn a lot but it did come from the need to show that it is in the community,” she noted.

Gissara said that the school holds an international academy every year to closely teach a few instructors every year, while also offering webinars and other forms of online support.

“Almost every year we have someone from Armenia” visiting the Perkins campus for the program, Udovicic said.

Udovicic noted that Perkins started its efforts in Armenia after the Gyumri orphanage reached out to them. “For some reason they reached out to us,” she said. “There were only children with complex disabilities in the orphanage.”

Now, the shift is to try to make the orphanages provide some programs to children with disabilities in the community to integrate them into the community.

One student that has made an impression on both Gissara and Udovicic is Artur, a child who could not be in an inclusive classroom. “In the beginning he had difficulty participating,” Udovicic said.

What his parents wanted, as did he, was to be able to blow out the candles on his birthday cake, something he could not do.

“At the end of the year he could blow out the candle and his parents were very happy. It shows how everything can be done when all the pieces come together, together with the family,” Udovicic said.

“What is beautiful for me is we share this big reach … and at the same time, we take care of Artur, so he is able to learn how to blow out the candle. That is not easy work, to be able to do this deep engagement and systemic change, and that’s is the work Darija is leading,” Gissara said

“Children and families are what drives us,” Udovicic said.

Gissara credited with many segments of the Armenian diaspora with helping fund the Perkins Armenia budget.

Among those donors are the Karisma Foundation and the Bilezikian Family Foundation. Another supporter, Laurie Onanian, said she and her family had long supported the school. When they found out that the school helps in Armenia, they were even more delighted to continue their help.

Unfortunately, the demand for Perkins’ services is here to stay. Said Gissara, “Two hundred and forty million children around the world have disabilities. We still have a lot to do. Our goal across all the regions where we work, we want to transform the systems so everything Darja tells you becomes sustainable so it’s not just one or two schools, but in all schools across the counties we work.”

To find out more about Perkins and its many programs, visit www.perkins.org.