Maryknoll Deaf Development Programme

Inclusive Education Workshop

18-19 December 2012

Education for children with disabilities is an on-going challenge in Cambodia. Several NGOs organized a national workshop on inclusive education to bring good ideas and practices to the fore.
Blessing dance at workshop
The first day of the workshop was held at the Phnom Penh Hotel and the Minister of Education came to open the event. Deaf students from the Krousar Thmey deaf school were first on the agenda with a traditional blessing dance.
The deaf team at the workshop
Justin Smith, Touch Sophy, and Charlie Dittmeier attended as the management of DDP and the Education Project, along with Som Vichet and Mean Phirom, two interpreters. Joining us (right) was Katharina Simmonds, a student from Australia doing research on inclusive education in Cambodia.

Registering the second day
The second day of the workshop, with a smaller number of participants, was held at a restaurant and meeting center in the Boeung Keng Kang area of Phnom Penh. Here two of the participants from other countries registered and signed up for discussion groups when they arrived.
Small group discussion
Six groups met through most of the morning on selected topics chosen to indicate where attention should be focused in Cambodia in the general area of inclusive education.
Through a step-by-step process of focusing more closely on issues, problems, and solutions, participants finally were asked to place red dots, indicating priority action steps, on cards with a variety of activities suggested by the group.
Choosing priority actions
Hang Kimchhorn, the Krousar Thmey Deaf Education Coordinator, here explains some of the suggested activities to participants from other groups who have come to place their priority dots.


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