The goal of this project was to give the parents of children with disabilities and people with disabilities, members of Shpresa, a chance to be informed about their guaranteed rights by the laws in Macedonia by a social worker and also hear from a psychologist how to manage and overcome their ordinary problems and stressful situations. Over the 3 months of the project’s implementation, 24 members were able to meet with the phycologist and social worker. Having access to this information should help reduce discrimination, the use of violence in their families and avoid divorces, since divorce is an additional misfortune for children with disabilities.

This project began on October 1st, 2009 and will last until December 31st, 2009 and was financially supported by the Ministry of Labor and Social Politics of the Republic of Macedonia.. Since the interest was great from the parents who attended, we hope that we will be able to find a donor to support the implementation of this project during 2010.

The videos from the summer's IT & English classes are now up on the website.
English Lessons
IT Lessons

During June and July 2009, APD Shpresa implemented a project supported by the Small Project Assistance program, an opportunity made possible by USAID and Peace Corps Macedonia. For 8 weeks of the summer, 9 members attended 2 hour classes on the weekends to learn both English and Information Technology skills.

The classes were taught by Afrim Bajrami, with Blerim Rexhepi assisting students as well. The English lessons covered the beginners level of the spoken language, starting with learning the letter names of the English alphabet, introducing oneself, and basic sentences and questions in the past, present and future tenses.

Students learned to use Microsoft Office software during the IT sessions. The classes gave in depth instruction on how to use MS Word, Publisher and Powerpoint, which are important skills to have for future employment opportunities.

Each session was recorded on video to increase the reach of the project within the community. The recordings were edited into lessons ranging from 5-20 minutes, focusing on the main lessons of the project. All of these lessons were compiled into a DVD and distributed to the students who attended the courses over the summer so that they can practice and review what they have learned. The rest of the DVDs will be given to other members interested in learning more about English and IT, and the lessons will be available on the internet via APD Shpresa’s website in the near future.

November 25, 2009 marked the official end of the project with a small gathering to give out certificates. Sefer Hiseni, a member of APD Shpresa who works in the Municipality of Chair, spoke with the students about his experience living and working in the local community with a disability, empowering the students to continue their efforts to learn and improve their skills.

This project was financially supported by the Macedonian Government, the sector for cooperation with the NGOs and we took the initiative to build 5 accesses in front of 5 different public institutions. Project began implementation on January 2nd and ended on March 27th 2009, and we are convinced that the project was a great success.
We, as an association that treats the problems of the people with disabilities plan to implement these kinds of projects in the future as well, since we are deeply convinced that these projects directly influence the living conditions in their area.

With the purpose to improve the independence and quality of life for people with disabilities in the municipality of Chair, A.P.D. "Shpresa", in cooperation with the French organization "Handicap International", many other organizations, and of course, with strong support from the municipality of Chair, encouraged the creation of the local action plan for the people with disabilities which is entirely based on the United Nations standards.
This project was realized during the year 2007, and was highlighted by it acceptance on December 7th, 2007, when this plan approved by the municipality council.
This project recognized all the problems that preoccupy the people with disabilities in the territory of the Chair municipality, and as it was predicted, the three year period of implementation started. At the beginning of 2008, a contract was signed between A.P.D. Shpresa and the French organization "Handicap International", solely for the implementation of this plan, and during this year, the working group which was predicted to be formed, in cooperation with the representatives of the municipality, did a very successful job and achieved these results:

• With our activities, we built 2 access ramps in front of 2 public institutions;


• APD Shpresa realized a course in field of IT, which lasted 3 months, starting September 10th, 2008 until December 28th, 2008;


• Access for people with disabilities was built in the main entrance of the municipality of Chair, which was built by all the building standards;


• Preparations for the foundation of the information office that will work based on the one-counter system;

It is understandable that we, as an association, the activities for the implementation of the local action plan 2008-2010, will continue during 2009 and we hope that we can achieve bigger and more concrete results.

The preparation phase of this project started on September 10th, 2008 and the actual training started on October 20th, 2008. Twenty four of our members, divided into 4 groups of 4, were predicted to follow this training, based on their previous knowledge in the field of I.T. This training took place in the educational training, a part of APD “Shpresa”. This project lasted until December 28th, 2008, and was financially supported by the City of Skopje.

The association of people with disabilities Shpresa, during the last 3 years, dedicated itself to create the conditions for the overall inclusion of the people with disabilities in the regular schools. This is not unintentionally, since is well known that the education of a person is what builds up it’s character.
The projects that contributed for the creating of the conditions are implemented in different ways. When we say that, we mean the changes that the project suffered in time, all in favor of its perfection. This means that until 2 years ago, this project was implemented solely threw the theater play. Lately, a workshop is predicted as well. The last project was financially supported by the well known Soros foundation, and was implemented in Strumica, Stip, Veles and Struga. This project started with the implementation on November 1st, 2007 and lasted until April 30th, 2008.

The goal of this project was to gather together the representatives of all the educational institutions, representatives of all NGOs, and representatives from the municipality since the municipality has most of the authorities in the field of education, to sensitize, encourage and create the conditions for the best possible inclusion of children with disabilities in the regular schools.

The conditions to be fulfilled are:
-Every educational institution to have physical access;
-Every educational institution to have a defectologist employed;
-All the educational institutions are to be equipped with medical equipment for the pupils with disability;

The second goal of this project was, in parallel, to give out research papers to all the representatives present in the workshop, which had questions like: how many schools in that municipality have physical access, how many children with disability actually go to those schools and do those schools have defectologists employed.

The third goal of this project was the raising awareness, no matter if its about the pupils in those schools or the teachers, so they will accept these children in their society without stereotypes or prejudges.

This project was implemented in two phases:
-The first phase was organizing a workshop for the previously mentioned representatives from the particular municipality, in which the lectured the defectologist;

-The second phase was the presentation of the Street Theatre, which was meant to be seen by the children of all the schools in that municipality;


This was all followed by posters and fliers.
With this project, the following municipalities were included as well, beyond the 4 municipalities mentioned: Skopje, Kumanovo, Tetovo, Gostivar, Kicevo and Kavadarci. With this same project, we intend to include all the rest of the municipalities of Macedonia, because this is the only way we can say that we didn’t discriminate the people with disabilities who live in these municipalities.