Our objectives
Offering to disabled children and young people who cannot attend school an educational project to socialise, learn and physically rehabilitate.
Raising social awareness about respect of human rights and of disabled people to contribute fighting disinformation, marginalisation and indifference.
Favouring the development of a local network of volunteers, specifically trained.
Helping families with disabled children overcome social marginalisation and embarrassment, recognising the value of the resources they have and promoting sharing and exchange with whoever is living the same experience.
Creating a network of domestic support (medical, psychological, educational and recreational) for the most serious disabled people and their families.
Offering formation courses, cultural activities and moments of socialisation for disabled people, their families and volunteers to promote meeting and dialogue among the different social subjects.
Helping and caring about young people through the offer of an educational path that encourages them believing in values and ideals, growing up and being able to make conscious choices, finding alternative solutions to those that society proposes and imposes to be the cultural and social link between past and future.
Being present with our prayers, hospitality and silence as a sign of faith and truth for everyone.
Our way of acting
The Meeting Point Arsenal is a house that welcomes everyone in need, with the right facilities to offer all the services necessary to the education of disabled children and spaces to host young people who come there to live educational experiences.
We organise educational and therapy activities for children, with the help of a specialised staff and modern techniques and materials.
We welcome young people coming from the Jordan town of Madaba to experience together moments of spirituality, manual and voluntary work and analyse great cultural and existential themes. Thus, we wish to change the world through young people.
We provide moments of meeting between young and disabled people with their families, to contribute to the creation of a network of solidarity for the weakest and the realisation of a community in which there is no distance between who welcomes and who is welcomed, meeting is real and helps overcome differences and prejudice. We wish to create a community in which good is made well, respecting the other and promoting every day a new mentality of hospitality.
To favour greater autonomy, we created a small IT lab as a didactic tool for the recovery of disabled children and young people in an entertaining way.
For the same purpose, we also created an audiovisual lab with computers, a projector, a screen, and digital cameras for multimedia activities as a support to traditional ones and for the animation of shared moments through the self expression of children and young people.
We also provide sewing and mosaic workshops, a cooking lab and a workshop of manual work with many different materials (like wicker, glass, sand and wood), as tools to introduce people to work and so improve their chances to find a new job. Their creations are sold in local bazars or produced on request for special occasions.
Regarding social development, the Meeting Point Arsenal offers a space for young people who wish to experience voluntary work. It represents a place for whoever wants to push their own boundaries and experience human relationships in a new way. Indeed, here at our place, giving means also receiving.
Our experience of local voluntary work has always been growing: now the number of our volunteers is around a hundred and their contribution is a fundamental resource.
Christians and Muslims work together towards the same aims and the path we chose is giving great results both for the present and the future.
Our achievements
The Meeting Point Arsenal hosts:
55 disabled children and young people from 6 to 18 years old, divided in 9 classes, coordinated by teachers and assistants (9.891 attendances in 2013).
30 people from 16 to 30 years old for educational activities and job training through mosaic, sewing and cooking workshops, manual activities and sports, in addition to meetings about dialogue and life issues (4.034 attendances in 2013).
School age children in groups for study support (1182 attendances in 2013).
Children and young people for individual lessons of speech therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychomotor education and sensory development (7.941 attendances in 2013).
Pre-school disabled children for activities to be done with their families to promote the development of their abilities (888 attendances in 2013).
Disabled people participating with their families and our volunteers to recreational groups of socialisation.
100 children and young people participating to our recreational activities: sports, music and manual activities in 2013, included summer camp (1.612 attendances).
Students attending our school are 185, of which 80 forming classes and 105 attending individual sessions. Children and young people frequenting the Arsenal for recreational and voluntary activities are around a hundred.
The Meeting Point Arsenal also offers:
training courses and follow-up meetings for teachers;
training courses for families;
a medical service (paid by the Jordan Ministry of Health);
formation and voluntary activities, especially for young people;
meetings with the families of able-bodied children and young people.
In addition to this, in 2013 we provided 6.075 meals and registered 5.943 attendances to our formation, prayer and cultural meetings.
PEOPLE INVOLVED:
185 disabled people in classes and individual sessions;
a director of studies for planning and coordination of students integration and contacts with families;
8 graduated teachers specifically trained for teaching to children with special needs;
6 class assistants, graduated or qualified for teaching to children with special needs;
2 speech therapists;
a physiotherapist;
an occupational therapist;
a sewing teacher;
a mosaic teacher;
a secretary;
2 drivers;
2 chaperones;
2 attendants for special services;
10 parents forming the council of school families;
a keeper;
100 able-bodied children and young people;
42 volunteers;
3 women belonging to our Sorority.