Services and Facilities

The institution provides vocational training and formal schooling up to ninth grade. The curriculum is the Lebanese curriculum adapted to the children’s needs. Children are taught both English and Arabic.  After completing ninth grade, students enroll in other schools or attempt to find work. The head of the institution reported that 41 per cent of the centre’s residents received education outside the institution, through public high schools, technical schools, and universities. 

Facilities included rooms for occupational therapy, physiotherapy and psychotherapy. Classrooms were not separated based on disability type but by the type of education (vocational or formal) and age. For those not able to engage in regular or formal education (kindergarten through brevet/middle school), the institution provided workshops on computers, handicrafts, music, and drama.

All five interviewed residents were involved in educational activities in formal or vocational school systems. Of those who attended regular schools, some were baccalaureate candidates. Others had graduated and were engaged in trainings. All interviewed residents expressed satisfaction with the education they had received. 

Aside from educational activities, interviewed residents reported being involved in activities such as writing and sports. One parent reported that his son liked educational events and conferences that discuss themes related to the lives of persons with disabilities. 

Early childhood educators provided a “morning orientation”, in which children learned how to take care of their bodies, clean themselves, not open the door for strangers, etc. They also taught residents about expressing themselves. 

Other services include speech therapy, physiotherapy and ergotherapy, the use of productive or creative activities in treating and rehabilitating people with physical disabilities and emotional instabilities. The interviewed parents unanimously praised the services provided by the institution. 

Parents generally appeared satisfied with the care their children received. In one case, a parent said that his child had been at the institution for 14 years, and had they not been satisfied, they would have taken him home. Another parent used his child’s educational level as an indicator of his satisfaction with the institution, mentioning that his son was a first-year biochemistry student at a Lebanese university.