Youth with disabilities are often neglected in or even denied access to public education across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. A 2013 UNICEF Report found that many children with disabilities in the region are often not even given the chance to attend secondary school.
The lack of resources for youth with special needs is still a lingering problem in many post-Soviet Union countries. But a haven for students who are eager to learn English exists in an unassuming place: a summer camp in Chisinau, Moldova.
The International Summer Camp
The five-week-long summer camp brings students with mild psychological and physical disabilities such as autism or cerebral palsy from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Serbia to take part in activities that aid their learning of English in an accepting, stress-free atmosphere. The best part? They camp alongside students without disabilities, who learn to challenge the stereotypes surrounding people with special needs.
The camp adapts to each new group of campers. For example, the camp prints specialized Braille or large-font books for blind or hard-of-sight students. For students with limited mobility, the entire camp comes equipped with ramps and supporting bars in the rooms.
Every teacher and camp counselor goes through training on teaching youth with special needs to give individual attention to each student. All campers attend several hours of English classes each day.
Camp Activities
But it's not all work and no play at summer camp! The students get involved in activities like the social theatre club, the English vocabulary club, arts and crafts classes, and civic engagement projects.
These clubs not only offer a break from the academic part of the program but also allow students to engage in creative assignments where they feel safe to share their thoughts and take on new challenges. Last summer, a blind student from Russia was thrilled to learn a dance routine for a group dance performance; an activity she had always been told was she was incapable of learning.
Cultural Exchange Comes First
And it's not all about disabilities, either. The summer camp, drawing students from over 10 countries, is the perfect ground for cultural exchange to take place.
"The best experience that I have had working at the summer camp [in Moldova] was watching two boys from Armenia and Azerbaijan became close friends, despite the tensions between their countries on the political level," a camp counselor recalled from years working at the camp. "It showed how international summer camps and cultural exchange can build bridges of friendship no matter what the circumstance is back home."
About AC Moldova
Since 2005, American Councils Moldova has organized English-language summer camps for students with special needs from the former Soviet countries. AC Moldova reaches out to special needs students with the goal to make them feel confident enough to participate in international exchanges. All of AC Moldova's teachers and mentors go through special training on how to teach children with special needs, led by nonprofit organizations and specialists in inclusive education from the Institute of Educational Sciences. Learn more about the work of American Councils Moldova.