Project Summary:
The Community Involvement Day project is designed to enable volunteers from the European Chamber to help three types of children, those with hearing disabilities, visual disabilities and autism, to communicate better with the outside world. As well as bringing gifts for the children and donations for their institutions, this programme also involves the children in carefully designed activities, based on the children s special needs.
Volunteers will learn how to interact and communicate with handicapped children and gain the satisfaction of making a small difference in these children s lives, and the children will experience the joy of interacting with the volunteers through the activities. They will gain knowledge and self esteem through information sharing and the sense of being respected.
Preparation and orientation (19 Oct to 3 Nov)
Those who wish to participate should register for this event by 26 October. Volunteers will be divided into three teams, and 3 to 5 team leaders identified for each team. Team leaders will attend an orientation and briefing meeting on 27 October and will be given some specific preparation work, including communicating with their team on any preparation required for the event.
Community Involvement Day Activities (3 Nov, 9am to 5pm)
09.00 am, meeting at the European Chamber Office
Address:
Unit 2204, Shui On Plaza
333 Huai Hai Zhong Road
Team 1: Drawing Competition, at Shanghai Zoo with Children from Shanghai School for the Deaf
Volunteers gather at School for instruction in simple sign language.
Presentation of gifts to school.
Volunteers are paired up with children and go together to the zoo.
Volunteer and child choose a spot to do a picture together.
The whole group reconvenes for picnic lunch.
Picture competition at end of day.
Team 2: Learning about Europe, at Shanghai School for Blind Children
Volunteers give a brief presentation in Chinese about the countries they are from, using some visuals (video, large scale photos) for those children with partial sight. Volunteers or partially sighted children describe in Chinese the visuals to the non sighted children.
Break down into small groups. Children asked to describe differences between foreigners and Chinese people either through partial sight or by touching foreigners faces. Discussion of differences, and similarities!
Buffet lunch
Volunteers teach a simple and fun song in their language.
Children and volunteers perform songs to each others groups.
Team 3: Wall Painting, at Fountain School for Autistic Children
Volunteers gather at school for brief training on how to communicate and interact with autistic children.
Games and performance with children and the faculty (guided by experts from Xintu).
Buffet lunch
Wall painting with volunteers, children and parents.
Free play
Reflection and Sharing (3 Nov, 6pm+)
At the end of the day, volunteers will be taken back to BECA Cafe to reflect on the days activities and share what they have learned. BECA Cafe is offering a free drink and free snacks to all participants. BECA Cafe is at Unit C6, Red Town, 570 West Huai Hai Road, near Hongqiao Lu (neighboring Shanghai Sculpture Space).
About the children
Children with hearing disability lack hearing and in most cases, speech capabilities. Many of them can only communicate through sign language, which restricts their ability to communicate with others. Some alternative channels with which we can communicate with them include writing, drawing and body movement.
Children with visual disabilities can not observe people s facial expression, gestures or other body language. Their information on the outside world is essentially limited to what they can hear and touch.
Children with autism suffer from a psychological development disorder. They lack social skills and have a limited scope of attention and movement. They intentionally avoid any form of interaction with people, and mostly live in their own world.
Shanghai Xintu Community Health Promotion Centre (www.xintu.org) will facilitate the one day activities and provide basic training to volunteers.
Costs of day s activities include transport, lunch and contribution to donations to three institutions.
For more information please contact Ms. Carlijn M. Linscheer at clinscheer@euccc.com.cn
Registrations for this event should be done before October 26th. To register for this event please click here. For the Chinese version please click here. For information regarding this event in Chinese, please click here.