1. The Program "Healthy Lifestyle"

In September, we  have been working intensively on the program "Healthy Generation". This academic year we have opened with a series of sessions in two classes (grades 6 and 7) on improvement of psychological climate  and team building among schoolchildren. We also consulted  teachers  on upbringing of the children and  children who have  behavior problems. For example, the teacher noted that children between which there are conflicts during our sessions can communicate and smile at each other. Sessions in these classes will be held every week until December 2014.

           The Project "Stop HIV / AIDS!"

In September, we started a new project - "Stop HIV / AIDS." Our project involves a free of charge training for  students in grades 9-11. Sessions are held in the form of interactive lectures, after which all the participating schools receive a set of learning materials (CD with all the information and the educational games on HIV/AIDS). This will help teachers to do the preventive work by themselves. Planned 100 interactive sessions  in 50 schools in the city of Zaporizhzhya.

During these sessions students will be able to:

- to identify their level of knowledge on HIV / AIDS;

- to get reliable information about HIV while viewing educational films;

- to consolidate their knowledge on the subject in an interesting quiz format.

In September, we have already done 18 sessions. Information on HIV/AIDS in a game format is interesting for the high-school students. During the sessions, the schoolchildren were very  active, they have no sense of embarrassment when discussing some topics related to HIV/AIDS. Our presentations were warmly accepted by teachers and school administration. Teachers underlined that the information was easy to understand for high-school  students with different level of education.

In general, children show a fairly high level of knowledge about HIV. The greatest difficulties they have in questions related to HIV transmission. Thus, many of the children were convinced that this virus is transmitted through mosquito bites. But they did not know that HIV can be transmitted from a mother to a child.

Also, very often during the discussions were heard the following remarks: "AIDS can be cured if you  strongly believe in it,"or  "There is already a vaccine against HIV!" The lecturer answers all the questions of children and informs them of the real situation.

Frequently asked questions are about where in Zaporizhzhya can a person be tested for HIV and whether HIV-infected people could be married and have a family.

Also during training, we try to share the  ideas about the importance of safe behavior among young people, which includes the ability to delay the  sexual activity and the expression of feelings without intimate relationships. As it turned out, a lot of guys did not bind sexual activity with HIV. So for us it was important to show then how a person could protect himself/herself from HIV by abstaining from sexual relations.

After each session  high-school students get handouts. At the end of the training the guys share their experiences and talk about the knowledge acquired. Here are some of their quotes:

  "Before this presentation, I did not hear anything  about HIV / AIDS. For me, everything was new! ".

"I learned that HIV attacks the immune system of a person."

"I did not know that a person can die from this."

"I thought that HIV is transmitted through the air. Now I know that's not true. "

                2. The Program "Volunteer"

 This month, in the context of collaboration with Zaporizhzhya National University, we hosted  university students (major  Social Pedagogues). After a day spending in our Centre some of them  decided to become our volunteers - to help children with special needs on the  "Kangaroo" program.  Students participated in different activities with children, took kids to the playground  as well as helped  in preparing the methodical materials. Constant communication with the cheerful and smiling, and  most importantly, friendly young people is making our children's lives joyful and interesting.

 Also, these students expressed a strong desire to participate in the project "We are just like youl!" (the  detention centre) as volunteers. In October  we  plan to go to the detention centre and University students will play football with teens there and do some bikes competitions.

            3. The Program "We are Just Like You!"

This month we made a regular trip to the  detention centre . Traditionally  we had two sport events. It was a football match  and lift-coup on the crossbar. The long-awaited football ended with a crushing score of 13: 6 in favor of one of the teams. A competition to lift-coup, to which students were preparing for a month, ended in favor of the students of Zaporizhzhya National Technical University. Student demonstrated an example of this training, strength and endurance.

              4. Counseling

In September, we had four consultations on child-parent relationships, and one consultation on  self-esteem issues.

              5. Participation in Seminars, Conferences

It was an on- line conference at Hlukhiv National University (Ukraine)  "Actual problems of social inclusion in the European educational space." Students from Zaporizhzhya National University were able to participate at the conference as well as  the director of the  "Florence Centre" Lyudmila Romanenkova, who made a presentation about  the integration of people with special needs into society using as an example  "Kangaroo" program . Thanks to the new technologies students from different Ukrainian Universities also watched a video about our work with children with special needs.

We participated in the seminar "Creating a network of regional centers of knowledge and expertise to support the reforms," ​​organized by the Institute of professional lobbying and advocacy. At the seminar were covered questions of the nature and principles of lobbying and advocacy to address important social issues.

              6. The Program "Kangaroo"

During the month, 15 families attended our program".

Four families got consultations.

This month our specialists got the consultation from a therapist from another NGO how to work with autistic children.

Group began to visit five new children. B. 3.7 years old; L. 3, 9 years old; N. 4.3 years old; B. 1.10 years old; K. 2.1 years old. Each child was  diagnosed (by  Strassmaier diagnostic). The evaluation showed the level of development of each child and specialists developed individual plans of the development of new children.

We continue to develop 5 essential functional components in kids: self –care, social development, fine and gross motoric, language (speech), thinking and perception.

Working with children in three ways: in groups, individually and in subgroup (2-3 persons).

It should be noted that the brand new children, V., V., L. and K. first time staying in the team for a long time without their parents. Adaptation occurs gradually. Children began to accustom to the regime and interesting activities. Especially children like walking on a playground, swimming in the pool, and music classes.

This month we continue staging puppet theater. Now we are staging a fairy tale "The Turnip."

Many thanks to student volunteers who help to organize outdoor  activies, took kids  to the  swimming pool, helped to conduct group sessions.

For parents of our pupils were organized free massage courses. Now, our parents will be able to study massage techniques, indications and contraindications, learn a lot of nuances of children's physiology and consolidate it all into practice.

To share with each other professional experience the staff of  "Kangaroo" visited similar NGO  "Prometheus", which work with disable children. At the meeting they discussed issues of professional support to those children who have to go to school, questions of integration of those children.

Continue to collaborate with a speech therapist.

With the help of parents we have created a short video where you can see an interesting, eventful life of our children in the "Kangaroo".