Inclusive Homes

The Inclusive Homes project, implemented jointly by Majlisna for Community Development and the Badwa Center for Special Education is the first step of a long journey that aims to increase the resilience of special education centres by promoting integrated approaches of service provision that support and care for special needs children and their caregivers to enable an adequate caring environment for them beyond the care centres.

The project’s idea emerged from the long experience of Badwa Centre in special education and the innovative approaches of Majlisna, who believe that a collaborative approach with the active engagement of all concerned actors is important to spread the care for PwD beyond institutions to homes and neighbourhoods. Therefore, supporting caregivers and engaging them in dialogue and knowledge production sessions on institutional levels will provide them with the tools and know-how to reduce complete reliance on institutions and enable them to empower and care for their children from home.

The project supported vulnerable children with intellectual disabilities and their caregivers who attend and make use of the services provided by the Badwa Centre who come from the surrounding communities in Qasabat Amman through a number of activities that support the centre, the children and the caregivers.

Project Methodology: 

The Inclusive Homes Project was designed, implemented and finalised through a hand-in-hand collaboration between Majlisna and Badwa Center. 

This collaboration aspired to exchange knowledge, lessons and methodologies among the teams, taking into consideration People with Disabilities and their caregivers as the main stakeholders.

This process was made possible by implementing a 5 action intervention plan that aligned together as the project implementation pillars;

1. Building a network of unlikely allies and understanding the existing ecosystem of service providers to establish and activate the Caregivers Forum; which acts as a

safe space for building networks, creating, and solving challenges together.

2. Creating the sustainable environment and the actual literal safe space through the physical rehabilitation of the sewing workshop in Badwa Centre, as a means of empowering children and their caregivers and through collaboration between the unlikely allies that we have connected with in the first action.

3. Collaboration and learning to create, which eventually translated into product development through design thinking for the vocational workshop. This point comes as a proof of concept to connect the different levels together

4. Hands-on on-job training on the creation of products and spaces that are tailored to the vulnerable segment we are dealing with through the affordable adaption of research outcomes

5. Creation and sharing of knowledge product to summarise the methodology of the intervention, allowing it to scale and grow with different community-based organisations or interested stakeholders through developing and disseminating a guidebook for caregivers and institutions.

Check out the video below to get a glimpse of the project and its outcomes.