Over the past year the initial idea of the project has changed a lot considering the changes in organisation, cooperation with local administration and human capacity of volunteers and staff.
Unfortunately we could not manage to have an agreement with new administration of school and local administration of the region where the school is located. Therefore we had to change the main place of the project as now our volunteers cannot assist the special needs children from the orphanage in classes. The lack of support from local administration and unwillingness to understand the need for volunteers’ assistance to youngsters, let us think about other options for implementation of the project.

And we found one! We have replaced our project into the orphanage.
And now the core of the project is regular classes with 5 special needs children 15-17 years old (not mix group classes in schools as it was planned earlier).
Within our project we give these children an essential knowledge for their further life that they could not get anywhere else. There is no any classes about their social rights in school program. The life of our children is strictly regulated by the closed institutions, such as orphanages and psycho-neurological boarding institutions, where they spend all their life.

And for someone it might be considered that there is no need to educate them in the area of social rights. But our strong believe is that young people with mental and physical problems must be aware of their rights to protect themselves within the institutions or even get a chance to leave them and live as much independent life as possible.
Such project could be a good example of social activity aimed at both releasing of young people from closed institutions and releasing the society from the old prejudices about young people with disabilities as well.

Within the project twice a month 3 volunteers give classes on social rights for 5 children with special needs.

Through games and dialogues with special needs’ teenagers we are studying together their social rights. The topics we cover are:

• • What is right?
• • Should I be given a PlayStation if I really really want it?
• • Should I be given a pill if I have a stomach ache?
• • Can children without wheelchairs study with me in the class?
• • Can someone offend me because I live in the orphanage?
• • Can I have my own home and family or I have to live in the orphanage? ... and so on

For some people these questions may seem quite basic, but it is essential for us that each participant knows the answers to them and remember them well!
At the end of the project we will offer a questionnaire and few games to children in order to understand what they had learned.
We hope that this project could be a good practice example and start for similar projects within our orphanage or other institutions for young people with special needs.