Abstract
In 1998, a big polio epidemic broke in Pi County, the northern Jiangsu Province of China. As a result, it caused more than six hundred children in the County disabled.
The Amity Foundation has set up the comprehensive community based rehabilitation project for those children since 1992. Besides the physical rehabilitation services and the mobility aids are provided in the program, promoting and supporting the inclusive education for these polio children is one of our major task in the project to make sure all the polio children can go to study in the community public schools. After years' efforts, inclusive education for the polio children in Pi County has reached very good results. Right now, the 648 children with polio at the 36 townships in Pi County, who are now at about 12 years old, are studying in the local village schools. #For inclusive education, our community based rehabilitation project in Pi County provides: 1. the regular training for the village school teachers on the knowledge of polio and how to help the children with polio on their daily school life and how to provide special psychological care for them. 2. the village schools with the adaptive facilities, such as the special toilet seats and non-obstacle environment for the children with polio and other physical disabilities.
In Return, the inclusive education for the polio children in Pi County has not only benefit the polio children by enjoying the equal learning opportunities, the full integration of school life and equal participation in the community activities, but also benefit the other children in the schools and the people in the community by bringing them the awareness of the disabled children and giving them the opportunity to learn from the disabled and understand better the disabled. It has been the effective educational and concept-changing process for all in the schools and in the community.
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