Are you looking for an idea to realise an activity to raise awareness of disabilities with children or adults? In this article, PlayMoovin’ tells you about an example of a disability awareness project carried out with children. Read this article if you want to know more about how it unfolded!
An example of disability awareness project
This specific project was carried out in an activity centre during school holidays. It allowed a dozen children aged 4 to 13 to work on the notions of disabilities and inclusion.
It took place in Blanzat’s activity centre and it is located north of Clermont-Ferrand. The director, Axel, proposes numerous projects to the children, each one more interesting than the last. These projects are cultural, artistic, sport-related, etc.
He wanted to change how the children he supervises view disabilities over the course of two weeks.
First, the children met a person suffering from a disability. As an introduction, the director also explained them that anyone could be confronted with disability. At the same time, he also wished to get rid of a quite common misconception: if nothing is visible, there is no disability.
Games to raise awareness of disabilities
After having identified the notion of disability, children played games themed around visual deficiency.
They also watched a report on deafness and also worked on aspects surrounding sign language.
Putting things in practice for a successful awareness activity on disabilities
Axel then proposed the children to put themselves in the situation of a person with reduced mobility.
To do so, he rented 8 sport wheelchairs from PlayMoovin’ which are certified by the CERAH. The model in question here is the FreeMoovin’, a sport wheelchair used to raise awareness of disabilities among adults and children.
Starting out, children used the wheelchair within the centre to go to the mess hall. They were of course supervised but it allowed them to identify the issues related to movement caused by the use of a wheelchair.
They also experienced more difficult situations such as going to the toilet with a wheelchair.
Once the first week was over, the group of children went to the multimedia library with their wheelchairs. They could thus notice the difficulty of driving on the sidewalls as well as notice the dangerousness of the cars in such a situation.
They also wondered about people’s judgment: “Why do people look at us like that?”
They noticed the different behaviour able-bodied had with people with wheelchairs. This experience has really allowed to raise awareness of disabilities among children.
This example of disability awareness project perfectly illustrates what it is possible to carry out. Would you like to change how children or adults see disabilities? What if you called us? We are at your disposition to rent our wheelchairs.
