Project profile — Inclusive Education for Palestinian Children with Disabilities

This project aims to promote the inclusion and access of girls and boys with disabilities to gender and disability responsive inclusive education through targeted interventions. Project activities include: (1) increasing equitable access to safe and protected inclusive education by girls and boys with disabilities through gender positive practices; (2) improving the provision of equitable and quality education for girls and boys with disabilities and parents of girls and boys with disabilities, teachers, education staff and other key community members; and (3) championing of non-traditional gender and disability-inclusive behaviour outside the “ideal man box” and “ideal woman box”, thus supporting an enabling environment for girls and boys with disability education.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased capacity and coordination among girls, boys, women and men, including those with disabilities and education actors to support out-of-school children’s access to education; (2) improved capacity of parents and education partners, and improved coordination between them and with protection actors, on the protection and safeguarding of girls and boys with disabilities; (3) enhanced capacity and coordination of education actors to provide gender and disability responsive formal and non-formal education services; and (4) increased ability of parents of girls and boys with disabilities, teachers, education staff and other key community members to recognize and critically reflect on their stereotypes related to gender and disability and respond to these stereotypes.

Results achieved as of March 2021, include: (1) 180 individual educational plans were developed and implemented for children with disabilities (of whom 78 are girls and 102 boys); (2) 249 children with disabilities, 193 in Gaza (of whom 73 are girls and 120 boys) and 56 in the West Bank (of whom 24 are girls and 32 boys), identified as being out of school through the remote identification modality and capacity building training implemented for community-based rehabilitators and social workers; (3) supported 17 organizations, nine in the West Bank, eight in Gaza and six family centers in Gaza by Humanity & Inclusion to respond to the needs of girls and boys with and without disabilities; (4) 99 parents (of whom 83 are women and 16 men) attended 53 peer-to-peer sessions on facilitation skills and have started the implementation of peer-to-peer support for other parents; (5) implemented 375 psychosocial support sessions by trained counsellors remotely or in-person; and (6) reviewed and updated three gender-sensitive emergency preparedness plans.