Association "Life with Down Syndrome" receives a grant of 3,500 KM

The Municipality of Centar Sarajevo, led by Mayor Dževad Bećirević, is one of the few local communities that has been focusing on persons with disabilities and children with developmental difficulties for years. This local community continuously provides funds to the Association "Life with Down Syndrome" for the implementation of the project "Speech Development in Preschool and School-Aged Children with Down Syndrome". For this project, the Municipality of Centar has allocated 3,500 KM from the budget for 2016 through a grant for non-profit organizations, Patria reports.

The development of children's speech is a complex and subtle process influenced by many different factors. The development of children's speech is primarily influenced by the family, and then by the teaching staff in kindergartens and schools. Therefore, understanding the difficulties children face and the obstacles they encounter is of great importance for teachers, as well as for the entire school collective. The institutions of the system, as well as the system itself, have not yet established a service for observational results aimed at reducing difficulties and achieving an optimal level of communication, which would enable free treatment for children in the local community.

The main goal of this project is to improve speech development in preschool and school-aged children, identify speech difficulties in children, improve communication in children with developmental difficulties through direct support, and empower the family, which is a key factor in a child's development process.

The project includes 30 children with Down syndrome and involves direct work where speech skills are developed through specific and adapted exercises. They work individually, and each session lasts 45 minutes, with additional consultations with parents.

The president of the Association "Life with Down Syndrome", Sevdija Kujović, stated that the support from the Municipality of Centar is crucial for the sustainability of the project, as well as for the Association itself.

- The Municipality of Centar is the only local community that is attentive to our needs and has been continuously supporting us for years, and we are immensely grateful for that. This is the sixth consecutive year that the speech therapy clinic has been operating precisely thanks to the Municipality of Centar. Support is provided to preschool-aged children by parents bringing their children for treatment, and simultaneously, work is done with parents to strengthen certain developmental stages of their children. For school-aged children, it often involves simultaneous support for teaching staff, i.e., the school, so that the work programs with children are adapted to their needs.

The project is in its preparatory phase, we are working on forming a list of beneficiaries and waiting for schools to start operating and for children to return from vacation, so we will start intensive work from September 1st. The need for financial resources is far greater than what we currently have, but unfortunately, only the Municipality of Centar has recognized this need this year. We sought support for children from other municipalities as well, but we did not receive understanding. We will not give up; children must receive support, and we will continue to work on that in the future, Kujović emphasized.