Today was our first time to travel to SERC alone, by microbus; and guess what…
We arrived 😉
We already had children greeting us once we opened the gate, a wonderful feeling.
Once upstairs we handed our stuffed toys (elephants and mouses) to one of the therapists
and after a short discussion with her colleagues it was decided that one pair will stay with physiotherapy,
whilst the others will be divided between sensoring classes and other programmes.
The kids spotted the new toys at once and their reactions were priceless!
Elephant and mouse were included in the therapy and it was amazing to see how even strongly autistic children
would suddenly respond, when “Elo” or mouse explained a new task and encouraged them to fulfill it!
Mind you, our soundtracks supporting these challenges were great, too and we earned so many smiles;
even from those kids who usually don’t open up at all!

        
Speaking of challenges… The work of everybody at SERC – children, teachers, therapists –
is a daily challenge, or in stronger words: a struggle. Although you will never hear anyone complain,
the environment and circumstances everyone has to deal with are – by western standards – poor, really poor!
Too little room, partly damaged buildings, poor sanitary standards, not enough teachers
and therapists compared to the number of kids and by far too little equipment to work with!
Plus we learned that in Nepal there is no special training for the work with special needs children.
Just normal studies for teaching, social work and physiotherapy.

So, what the staff at SERC is carrying out on a daily basis is phenomenal!

WHOEVER reads this and is trained in working with special need kids, please consider volunteering
in Nepal and working with those fabulous kids at SERC!
Carmen and I are not trained; and still we already have the feeling that we can help and support;
just imagine what you guys could do and achieve with your training and experience!
Please do get in touch for more info!

One must always keep in mind that the children at SERC are very, very lucky and privileged to attend school
and to get a lot of loving attention and support!
The older ones even run a little café, where they learn how to take orders, prepare and serve soft drinks
and handle money! A brilliant idea, and the kids enjoy this programme immensely!

That’s it for today, now onto dinner; and some finger-crossing for tomorrow: good weather
for our Mount-Everest-Flight PLEASE!!!