Community Services to Vulnerable Groups: Expanding Participation of People with Disabilities Quarterly report April – June 2015

The project is implemented by ChildFund International-Belarus, in partnership with various organizations, and is funded by the USAID Cooperative Agreement Number 121-A-00-05-00703-00. The project's three main objectives are to build the capacity of grassroots organizations supporting people with disabilities, to support advocacy efforts to promote inclusion, and to support the introduction and development of inclusive education for children and young people with disabilities. The project has made significant progress in achieving its objectives. One of the key highlights of the quarter is the finalization of the Concept on Inclusive Education in Belarus, which was completed by the Multidisciplinary Expert group of the Ministry of Education. ChildFund and its partner organizations were invited to join the expert group and provided suggestions to ensure that the Concept is well justified and reflects the fundamental principles of inclusion. The final version of the Concept was shared with the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Social Protection, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice, and other key stakeholders for official approval. Another significant achievement of the quarter is the national roundtable on inclusive education, which was hosted by Baranovichi University. The roundtable participants consolidated and assessed resources on inclusive education in Belarus and discussed their utilization by all interested parties. The Resolution issued by the roundtable participants addressed to the Ministry of Education recommended the use of curriculum on inclusive education developed by Baranovichi University and Belarusian State Pedagogic University in programs of teacher training and retraining. The project has also enhanced NGO networking and cooperation through their joint work on a new proposal funded by the EU. The objectives and activities of the new project reflect priorities for NGO networking and cooperation that ChildFund's partner NGOs identified during the course of the NGO networking meetings conducted last project year. The preparation of the concept paper and full proposal for EU was a new process for ChildFund and partners, which allowed everyone to further define their own roles and competencies in building NGO networks and promoting inclusive education. The project has also made progress in sustainability, including the completion of a series of working meetings with specialists and organizations from the project sites to discuss continued roll-out of inclusive education in existing and new educational facilities in the targeted communities. The plans for all communities supported by ChildFund were presented to the district Departments for Education in June 2015, and it is expected that the development plans on inclusive education will be incorporated into the Department Working Plan for academic year 2015-2016. The project has also convened a Final Project Conference, which brought together 80 participants representing project partner organizations, including oblast and rayon Departments for Education, local child protection services, partner universities and re-training institutes, and international NGOs. The Conference objectives aimed to inform the audience on the project outcomes achieved on the local, oblast, and national levels, to present the professional resources created within the project and available to them, and to strengthen the networking among the project partners.