Ämmuste state school is reaching 195 years of age, from which, last 49 years it’s been functioning as a special school. At the moment the school has 38 pupils with intellectual disabilities. In addition to main building and a dormitory, the school also has workshops for teaching handicraft, metalwork and woodwork. The school is situated in a naturally beautiful and peaceful location, 3 kilometers from nearest settlement. We see that for ensuring our school’s continuous development and sustainability, we need to become more involved with international relationships and partnerships with similar institutions. As this is our first project in this field, we have chosen to cooperate with similar schools (for students with intellectual disabilities) form neighboring countries (Latvia, Lithuania). Both are secondary schools with dormitories. The common goal of aforementioned three schools is to encourage their students to become more independent, make more friends and contacts, to occasionally exit their routine environment for experiencing the exchange of cultures. While participating in the project, pupils and teachers can further develop their foreign language skills. Also it’s important to develop social inclusion for people with intellectual disabilities and for people with fewer opportunities. Project would also have strong effect in further developing didactic skills of teachers for international cooperation. In the project, participating schools are from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. One school from each country. All students in these schools have intellectual disabilities. All participating schools are public secondary schools with dormitories. Altogether 22 students are participating in this project. Taking into account their disabilities, each group needs to have 4 adult accompanying persons. The project consists of three meetings, one in each country. During each project meeting, the hosting organization will introduce their school and educational system of their country. A hosting organization will also conduct a sightseeing tour of their country’s important cultural heritage. Pupils will conduct prepared workshops. Themes for workshops are national food, folk dance and national handicraft. Taking into account the limited abilities of pupils, every workshop needs to be conducted on separate days. In addition, pupils will make new friends from partnering schools and practice their foreign language skills. For preparing the workshops, students will be practicing with local folk-dance group, practicing national handicraft in local national workshop. National food for workshop will be chosen by students. They also practice to prepare and serve the food. Taking into account the disabilities, an adult accompanying person will support conducting the workshops. As a long-term impact we’re expecting our students to become more bold and independent in using foreign languages, to have broadened understanding about other countries’ culture and habits. In addition, getting to know their pupils’ behavior in foreign surroundings is valuable experience for teachers. We believe, that conducting such a project takes our school to further successful partnerships, which have an important role in sustainable development for all participating organizations.
To advance social inclusion of disabled students and students with lesser opportunities. To advance the youths social responsibility and entrepreneurship. Also to give teachers a long lasting opportunity and encourage being active. Develops students' foreign language skills, socialization with students from a foreign country, offers communication and performance experience. Teachers also develop foreign language skills, share experiences in motivating students with intellectual disabilities, successful workshops and self-confidence. They also learn about the folklore of a foreign country and gain valuable experience through travel.
The need to participate in the project was accompanied by the desire to promote the social inclusion of children with special needs and fewer opportunities and to promote the social responsibility and entrepreneurship of young people. As it was a first project of such kind for our school and the long-term impact on the teachers is the experience of participating in the project and the courage to participate in the following projects as well.