After two weeks of preparation, my group held the community event! The structure of the event evolved from our original idea of a musical performance to an educational fair about La Escuela Especial and the students that attend it. The goal of the event was to help reduce the stigma of special needs in Nebaj and raise awareness about La Escuela Especial. The intention is to replicate this forum at other schools in the region in order to target future change agents in the community.
The entrance to the event!
At the first forum, many community leaders volunteered their time to lead different stations about special needs. There were six total stations: psychological aspects, legal aspects, familial aspects, medical aspects, physiotherapeutic aspects, and student-life aspects. Before the middle schoolers rotated through the stations, we premiered the mini doc and handed out an informational brochure.
A view of the various stations!
The “aspectos legales” station!
Premiering the mini doc was so rewarding!
The brochure we gave to the attendees!
At the forum, we gave the attendees surveys in order to evaluate its impact and success. After reflecting about the results, our group concluded that the first forum was a success but acknowledged the need for changes in the future, specifically including more interactive activities. However, we are returning next week to the United States and will not be able to be directly involved in these implementations, and due to the busyness of the workers at La Escuela Especial, we are unsure if future forums will occur.
Because of this, our group is struggling to evaluate the sustainability our project. While we involved a lot of community members in the execution of the project, due to our time crunch it was difficult to integrate these community members in the planning and preparation of the event.
However, we tried our best, and ultimately it is up to the school in how they utilize our project when we leave. I am excited to see what the school accomplishes in the future, related to or not related to our project!