Professor of The Open University UK, Kieron Sheehy delivers material in inclusive disaster mitigation training.
Unesa.ac.id., SURABAYA—Disability Innovation Center (DIC) Surabaya State University (UNESA) together with the Research of Community Mental Health Initiative (RoCMHI ) The Faculty of Psychology, University of Indonesia (UI) and The Open University of the United Kingdom held a disaster mitigation workshop specifically for children with disabilities in inclusive PAUD.
The training, which is intended to support the development of assistive technology in disaster mitigation education, took place on Thursday , October 10 2024 at the 10th Floor of the Rectorate Building. Participants are representatives from eight inclusive PAUD schools.
This workshop combines the concepts of movement and song as a medium to equip children with inclusion regarding disaster mitigation. This agenda is part of the ongoing project "Inclusive Indonesian Class" which was developed in collaboration with UNESA, UI, and The Open University.
The aim of this training is to create an inclusive teaching approach and develop pedagogical strategies that can encourage results positive social and educational activities for all students, including children with special needs.
Sherly Saragih Turnip, Chair of RoCMHI Psychology UI with Sujarwanto, professor of special education management at UNESA.
In this activity, the participants the workshop was invited to integrate the concepts of movement and song as media in disaster mitigation education. One of the methods proposed is the use of Signalong Indonesia, a sign language system designed to be understood in various schools.
“This makes it easier to convey disaster information with simple movements. However, it is able to convey complex meanings," said Kieron Sheehy, professor from Open University UK.
Sherly Saragih Turnip, Chair of RoCMHI Psychology UI, emphasized the importance of inclusive disaster education for children with disabilities. "We want to create tools that are disability-friendly and ensure that disaster information is conveyed in a fun and easy-to-understand way," he said.
This workshop also introduced the Fun Big Book, a story book based on manual sign language that highlights words -key words in spoken sentences correspond to the word order in everyday language, different from sign language for deaf communication.
The book is designed to increase children's involvement in disaster mitigation activities through songs and movements.
p>"Fun Big Book is a form of inclusive approach designed to make it easier for children to understand simplified sign language, so that it is more effective in conveying disaster mitigation information," explained Kieron Sheehy while showing the physical form of the book.< /p>
Professor and Chair of DIC UNESA, Budiyanto explained various innovations that support disaster mitigation programs for special school or inclusive school children.
Chairman of DIC UNESA, Budiyanto explained that this program has been running since 2023, with research related to the Fun Big Book. This song and movement-based story book is designed to introduce children with disabilities to the concept of disaster mitigation in an interactive way.
Fun Big Book, which was first implemented at Nada Ashobah Kindergarten, succeeded in attracting children's interest with a combination of singing and innovative movements.
As a further step, the implementation of the results of this workshop will be tested at Nada Ashobah Kindergarten on Friday, 11 October 2024. The children there will sing the songs developed in the workshop, like a song about fire, and tested using the improved Fun Big Book.
"We hope that through this trial, we can evaluate the effectiveness of our approach and find development areas for further research," said Budiyanto.
Through DIC, UNESA also plans to commercialize the Fun Big Book product at the national level to Southeast Asia. "At the end of November, we will start downstreaming this product together with SEAMEO, a disability education organization for the Southeast Asia region," explained the UNESA disability professor.
This product has been distributed to 32 institutions in 26 provinces in Indonesia , and is expected to be a significant tool in reducing disaster risk for children with disabilities throughout the archipelago.[]
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Reporter: Prismacintya (FBS)
Editor: @zam*
Photo: UNESA PR Team
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