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Special summer camps for children in need of special attention
04 Sep 2007 06:23:51 GMT
The volunteers help the children with special needs to get ready for a walk
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The volunteers help the children with special needs to get ready for a walk
World Vision MEERO, http://meero.worldvision.org
Some 18 children with special needs had a unique opportunity to enjoy summer during a summer camp at lake Sevan, Armenia’s biggest and most beautiful lake.

The camp was also an important opportunity to advocate for integration of the disabled in the Armenian society, as people with special needs do not usually visit public holiday resorts.

The children spent days playing, learning ceramics and drawing, but the biggest attraction was the lake itself which had good therapeutic and psychological effects on these children. “Water has a very good effect on children with physical problems: it relaxes and soothes. Besides, the children with movement difficulties feel themselves equal to the others when in water and even surpass their peers in swimming”, says Kristine Baghdasaryan, the Sevan Camp Leader.

The camp that was a result of successful cooperation of World Vision and “Armenian Camps” NGO had a positive impact also on the eight young volunteers who took care of the children. “The camp became a very important stage in my life and an excellent experience: I realized I can be very responsible and caring”, says Angelica Babayan, a 17-year-old volunteer from Yerevan.

Under another initiative of the World Vision Armenia's Children in Especially Difficult Circumstances (CEDC) programme, 20 boys from two of Armenia's special institutions spent 10 days in a riding club outside the capital Yerevan. The boys from the institutions are there mostly due to social and psychological problems in their families. Each learned horseback riding and took care of the horses, which is considered a very good therapy for stress.


[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]

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Last updated:Tue Sep 4 08:45:34 2007