SCHS

SCHS ORGANIZES SANABEL AL-MAHABA “GRAINS OF LOVE” TO DEVELOP THE SERVICES OF AL WAFA SCHOOL

Jan 16, 2020

Al Wafa School for Capacity Development, which is an affiliate of Sharjah City for Humanitarian Services (SCHS), is going to organize Sanabel Al-Mahaba “Grains of Love” festival from January 29 to 30, 2020, in order to integrate students with disabilities with their non-disabled peers at public and private schools.  In addition, SCHS works to plant the concept of social responsibility in people’s minds and benefit from the revenues of the festival to cover for school’s internal and external activities according to the best educational practices.

Sanabel Al-Mahaba is an annual activity that includes many recreational activities, the proceeds of which are for the benefit of developing school programs for persons with disabilities. In addition, it invites community members to learn about the services offered to those persons and contribute to their support through material donations and moral support.

Dr. Samia Mohamed Saleh, the Headmaster of the School, has confirmed that SCHS held the first round of the festival in 1998 in order to achieve the principle of community partnership through motivating community members to support the education and empowerment of persons with intellectual disabilities.  SCHS works to provide modern methods and technologies in accordance with best practices in the field of special education.

The goal of the 19th edition of Sanabel Al-Mahaba falls within the framework of implementing programs that contribute to developing communication skills and stimulating language development for children with intellectual disabilities.

She added, “In the last edition, SCHS allocated a portion of the proceeds to purchase a robot capable of interacting and training students with disabilities under the supervision of their teachers.  Specialists used Zora, which is the name of the robot, to train students, interact with them, and develop their skills linguistically, socially and cognitively as an important type of smart learning”.

All previous festivals had a distinguished participation of non-disabled  students.  This year, the anticipated number of participants is going to be bigger because there is an open day dedicated to male students and another for female students.  Parents of students can participate on Thursday, January 30, during day and night shifts. Dr. Samia focused on the importance of event not only with regard to revenues, but also with the profound significance of its educational goals and the opportunity to integrate students into society.

She explained that the Sanabel Al-Mahaba event achieved a lot for students with disabilities. For example, SCHS allocated the proceeds of previous years to purchase prosthetic devices and equipment for individual training and sensory motor rooms as well as developing the computer room, developing curricula, purchasing the necessary educational aids, and buying a number of electronic blackboards.

To conclude, Dr. Samia asked owners of companies to support (Sanabel Al Mahabba) and contribute to the development of services offered to students with disabilities in accordance with international best practices.