Centro Educativo Corazón Contento (School for children with special needs)
Nicaragua offers very few alternatives for those with any type of disability or special need. As an answer to this issue, the Lorenzo Guerrero Mora Foundation wants to open an Educational Center for people with special needs in the city of Granada.
The project aims to improve the life conditions of disabled people in Granada and its outskirts. It searches to integrate and insert the students in their society, with access to the labor sector. The center will implement a pedagogy adapted to the students’ needs and capacities. The project also seeks to improve knowledge and comprehension of disabilities in the student’s families and in the people in Granada.
The project will work with people from 12 years old who have some type of special need such as: inability to speak or listen, total or partial mobility difficulties, intellectual difficulties, syndromes or diseases that make it difficult for them to lead a normal life. The center will begin working with a maximum of 40 students in the first year. The future plan is to increase the number of students and to widen their age rank.
The Center’s main activities will be: Academic support classes (such as basic math, basic writing and reading), support classes about abstract concepts knowledge, improvement of verbal and non verbal communication, home and common situations, movement and physical therapy, body language, trainings oriented to labor insertion, arts and crafts, art, music, daily dinner for the students, courses for parents and relatives (Group therapy and explanations about the process affecting their loved ones).
The center has 5 hired professionals and a director, who is a psychologist.
Ongoing needs
Wages for the teachers, food expenses, school supplies, utilities bills, etc.
Amounts that can make a difference:
- Monthly expenses for Director, teachers, power, water, guard, etc can be covered with $2,700.
- The Daily Lunch Program (a healthy, well-balanced lunch for the students) can be covered with $1000 a month for all the students.
- The annual salary for highly qualified Special Needs Professors from USA of the EU can be covered with $1500 a month.
