Peer education for primary and high school students
The activities in the project “Stop discrimination of persons with disabilities” entered the next phase in May and June with the application of the acquired knowledge and the implementation of peer education in the involved primary and secondary schools in Bitola. Trained peer educators gave all planned presentations to their peers in the schools where they study. Anastasia held her presentation at Kliment Ohridski school, Leona and Christian at Elpida Karamandi school, and Marta and Michaela at Kole Kaninski school, as far as elementary schools are concerned. While for the secondary schools, Brankica and Angela conducted their peer educations at Taki Daskalo vocational school, and Ivan and Leona at Jovan Kalauzi medical school. The focus of all presentations was on discrimination and intolerance as behavior that creates discomfort in communication and understanding of other people. All the exercises and activities that the students shared with their peers were aimed at the listeners putting themselves in the other’s shoes and feeling what it’s like to have some kind of limitation in everyday life. With that, the peer educators enabled the classmates to have a practical experience of what it looks like when you are disabled in something and thus encourage awareness of the diversity that everyone has. In this way, a better understanding of the everyday life of students and other persons with disabilities was enabled. Then there were conversations and discussions about the impressions of the exercises and activities. The total number of students who were present at these presentations was about 150 students in 6 classes. This is the end of another phase of this project which will continue with sharing of the experiences that the peer educators had during their training, as well as the sharing of a small survey related to these topics. With the project “Stop the Discrimination of People with Disabilities”, we raise awareness of the existence of discrimination in all spheres of life in our society and indicate the regulations that help to reduce it in the future. The project is supported through small grants from the anti-discrimination program of the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation – MCMS, financed by the European Union and implemented by Poraka Nova, in cooperation with YMCA. The peer-to-peer is a methodology that as an organization we will continue to work on in the next period in several topics of interest to young people such as mental health, and personal, social, and career development of children and young people for which we have already secured support, but more for that in some of the following posts on our website. Read here to learn more about previous project activities
Workshops for peer educators and school professionals – Project: Stop Discrimination
During our activities so far, four workshops have been held for students, one for the educational assistants in the schools involved in the project and one for the professional psychological-pedagogical services. The four workshops were attended by 12 students who were ready to take on the role of peer educators on the topic of non-discrimination of persons with disabilities. The topics covered at the first workshop were general and addressed general human rights and children’s rights in particular. The second workshop was about the concept of discrimination and the habits that cause this phenomenon, such as prejudices and stereotypes. At the end, they talked about the way discrimination can be overcome and that is through tolerance. At the third workshop the topics of disability and discrimination of people with disabilities were discussed and the students also prepared their initial draft ideas on how they will perform peer education for their classmates. In the last workshop we talked about the types of violence and the protection against discrimination. Also, the ideas for the students’ presentations were deepened with the help of the instructors giving the students the opportunity and creative freedom to express the material they had prepared to the best of their ability. With that the small cycle of trainings intended for the students was closed and it was followed by Workshop intended for educational assistants who work in schools with people with disabilities. Considering the current reform in our educational system where greater inclusion of these persons is introduced in the educational process, this training has met with great interest among educational assistants. Many questions were raised and the assistants took the opportunity to express their views, opinions and insights about the various processes that take place in education, especially in the part of their work engagement in schools. At the workshop, the same topics were discussed with them as with the students, but in a more condensed form and at a higher level. The last of the planned six workshops was held this week. It was intended for the professional services of schools in Bitola and covered the topics of legal regulations related to protection against discrimination of persons with disabilities. Professional services had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with these legal regulations through a presentation held for them by a representative from the Commission for Protection and Prevention of Discrimination (CPPD). After pointing out the legal decrees, a case study was also shown where the CPPD acted on a case reported to them with which the professional services had the opportunity to see what the procedures look like when reporting discrimination against a person with disabilities and what are the institutions and procedures that should be followed in the entire procedure. With that the school services had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the latest and most recent changes in the legal provisions and procedures related to this topic. With the project “Stop the Discrimination of People with Disabilities”, we raise awareness of the existence of discrimination in all spheres of life in our society and indicate the regulations that help to reduce it in the future. The project “Stop discrimination of persons with disabilities” is supported through small grants from the anti-discrimination program of the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation – MCMS, financed by the European Union and implemented by Poraka Nova, in cooperation with YMCA. Read here to learn more about this project
Stop the Discrimination of People with Disabilities
In partnership with Poraka Nova we have started a 7 months long campaign (from February until August 2023) against discrimination of people with disabilities. This project is focused on raising awareness about this discrimination (the existence, recognition and prevention of discrimination) in schools among pupils and the school’s professional services, as well as promoting the legal procedures in case of reporting discrimination to authorities. The legal procedures are made available and promoted through The Commission on Prevention and Protection against Discrimination (CPPD). The goal of the project “Stop discrimination against persons with disabilities” is to raise awareness of the existence of discrimination against persons with disabilities in all spheres of life in our society, as well as to point out to specific groups of people in Bitola the existence of legal regulations that help to sanction, prevent and reduce it in the future. Those groups of people are students in secondary and primary education, educational assistants and professional services in schools. This program will bring much-needed awareness against discrimination to school pupils through peer-to-peer education as a methodology. This project fits into our strategic priorities to work with youth on non-formal educational programs and focus on peer-to-peer methods. The topic fully aligns with our mission and the values we promote. In this project, we will work with youth and with school professionals working with these vulnerable categories of young people. Raising awareness of non-discrimination towards persons with disabilities includes: This is a project supported through small grants from the anti-discrimination program of the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation – MCMS, financed by the European Union, and implemented by Poraka Nova and YMCA as partners. Follow our Facebook page for updates on the project activities!
