This campaign has now closed
This project aims to improve the quality of life and social inclusion of vulnerable children with disabilities and their families through volunteer-led outreach support. Volunteers give one-to-one support to disabled children and their families and run group activities and workshops helping children develop, and become integrated in their local community.
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The Outreach Support Programme is based on the internationally-acclaimed methodology of Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR), a pioneering World Health Organisation-certified model of community-based support for the disabled. It seeks to involve people with disabilities in the development of their communities and ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to rehabilitation and other services and opportunities. The project is delivered by trained volunteers. This approach aims to mobilise local people to support the needs of disabled children in their communities, and in doing so, increase potential for long-term sustainability of the project. The project works from community outreach bases which are strategically located in the poorest districts across Cali Volunteers give one-to-one support to children and their families and run group activities and workshops from local community outreach bases (often libraries). The project helps parents and family members provide the best care possible for their disabled child, by developing personalised care and support plans and helping the children access medical evaluations, treatment and disability aids. Individual and group activities are run at the community outreach bases helping children develop communication, cognitive, social and mobility skills as well as numeracy and literacy levels. The project also helps families of disabled children build relationships with other parents so they can support, and provide respite for, one other. As many disabled children accessing the project have never been to school, another focus is educational inclusion.