Voronezh regional public children's organization “Iskra” (Russia), Polish Association for Human Rights Education “Compass” (Poland) and the Institute of Social Rehabilitation (Greece). The meeting brought together volunteers from 9 countries - Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Latvia, Georgia, Slovenia, Turkey, Greece, Germany. At creative workshops we could share our experience of working with people with special needs. Thus, Lyudmila Saevich, head of the Donetsk typhology center “Window to the World,” spoke about helping visually impaired and blind people. Inna Kravchenko (Kharkov, Ukraine) shared her experience of working with the historical and local history studio “Clio” for young people with functional limitations. Representatives of the Eco-Center, as well as the Donetsk organization for helping disabled children and young disabled people “Rainbow”, spoke about the results of the creative event for young disabled people “Rainbow Bridge”.
During our visit to the Donetsk City Council, we were able to exchange experience in cooperation between public organizations and local authorities on the rehabilitation of people with special needs, and learned about the close cooperation of the public organization “Rainbow”, the EcoArt Arts Center and the Department of Family and Youth Affairs of the Donetsk City Council. Volunteers visited the city council museum, where they could get acquainted with the history of the city and its outstanding people, and also learned about the prospects for the development of Donetsk.
At master classes conducted by volunteers, we were able to master various techniques that are used in rehabilitation work: beadwork, mancotherapy, and threadography (the use of floss threads in creating collages). Ilona, a representative of the Samara city public organization for wheelchair users “Desnitsa”, taught volunteers how to make different figures from balloons. Lyudmila Ivanovna, a teacher at the Art School of Paper Art in Donetsk, told us about the wonders of creating paper figures (origami) and many other Japanese techniques.
Vitaly Pavlogradsky, a representative of the Belarusian Association of Unesco Clubs (Minsk), surprised and taught us the miracles of magic tricks. Under the guidance of Tatyana Stepanova (Donetsk, “Rainbow”) we mastered the monotype technique, created various images using paints. In addition, she taught volunteers how to create bouquets of candy.
During the master class on fairy tale therapy, we were able to play the role of various fairy tale characters and gain team experience in solving problems. During specially organized discussions, they could discuss issues of cooperation with media representatives and talk about the potential of volunteers of different ages in working with people with special needs.
A trip was organized for the volunteers to the Rainbow Center for socio-psychological rehabilitation of children and youth with functional limitations, where we met young people who pleased us with their creative achievements. They presented a medley from their fashion theater collections and also prepared a concert program for us. We taught the children to perform tricks that they had mastered during the master class. The guys received a lot of positive emotions, and also promised us that they would train at home and show tricks to their family and friends.
Volunteers from Greece and Latvia showed an interesting film about the life of visually impaired people, which helped us understand the difficulties they face every day and how they perceive the world around them.
Volunteers were left with many impressions from their walk to the Park of Forged Figures, which turns 10 this year and by this time already has 143 works of art by masters. We enjoyed the beauty of the fauna world in the Donetsk Oceanarium, where we saw many beautiful fish and reptiles.
The volunteers left, filled with impressions of communication and creativity, exchanging contacts with each other, mastering various methods of creative work, and, of course, with plans to return to their cities and share their experience with other volunteers, as well as conduct creative classes for young people with special needs in psychophysical development.
If you care about how the people around you live, and you are ready to participate in the lives of the people around you, go for it! The opportunity to help another person appears every day - just be careful and you will see it. And if you want to plunge into the volunteer movement, learn about the joys and difficulties of volunteer life, come to us. We will be glad to welcome you to our volunteer team.