Our Inclusive Education Helped Lebanese Ghaith (11) Come a Long Way

War Child works to make its projects accessible to all children - no matter their backgrounds or circumstances. Inclusion is a key priority for our organisation - because few things are more rewarding than supporting children to develop in a world that is both equal and fair. Children like Ghaith.

Watch: Ghaith’s story

Eleven-year-old Ghaith has epilepsy, as well as a visual and auditory impairment - which has until recently served to limit his access to schooling. Ghaith is enrolled at War Child’s Burj Barajneh Centre in Lebanon and takes part in the UNICEF programme for Adapted Basic Literacy and Numeracy (A-BLN), funded by the governments of the Netherlands, Australia and Finland. He shares his story in our video:

Working together

War Child staff worked together with Ghaith and his family to help smooth his transition into attending classes. Ghaith had not attended school for some time before enrolling in our activities. To support his learning our facilitators visited him at home, brining school essentials and materials with them. Ghaith also accesses therapeutic sessions to help manage his condition - and his strength and enthusiasm have increased greatly as a result. Ghaith’s mother is proud of her son’s progress: “Ghaith has come a long way in a very short time thanks to these sessions. I haven’t seen him as happy as he is now!” Ghaith's mother is excited for what the future might hold for her son.

Inclusion at the core

Children living with disabilities face a number of barriers that impact upon their ability to claim their fundamental rights - both physical barriers as well as social ones such as discrimination and stigmatisation.

War Child works to address these barriers in all our work with children - through inclusive programme design and the continued development of our STRETCH stigma reduction approach.