Stretch: Supporting Human Diversity through Inclusive Design (1st Meeting)

** report 4-2008

Between June 20-25 we had the first meeting involving partners from Brazil and Canada to define the final proposal to be submitted to ICURA call. The overarching goals defined for Stretch are:

• Create an inclusive environment and infrastructure for the exchange and sharing of educational experiences amongst students and teachers across language, culture and context.
• Empower all students, including students with disabilities, to transform their environment -- to be active producers rather than passive consumers in their education. 
• Help shift community's understanding of "school" from just a place for simply getting knowledge from the teachers to a place to share knowledge and a place to participate.

The following people attended this meeting: 

• Jutta Treviranus, Stephen Hockema and Matt Ratto, from University of Toronto (Canada)
• Vanessa Pfaff from EasterSeals (Canada) 
• Ronaldo Linhares from Universidade Tiradentes (Brazil) 
• Paulo Emílio de Castro Andrade from Humbiumbi (Brazil) 
• Saulo Faria Almeida Barretto from IPTI (Brazil)

This first meeting was held in Aracaju, Sergipe, Brazil, and included a visit to the south region of Sergipe (sleeping in Mangue Seco) and the school that will be the pilot of Stretch. Below you see some photos from the meeting and visit.

Besides the importance of meeting the partners, this visit was also important to see and listen the reality in schools like we find in south region of Sergipe. For instance, one problem we realized from this visit that we will need to face is with the difficult to identify children with disabilities , mainly those which are cognitive, like dyslexia and discalculia. So, our project will need also to develop mechanisms to help teachers and other local people to identify possible disabilities.