Center in Israel seeks to bring down barriers for disabled people there

From Haaretz.com in Israel:

Twenty-two years ago, Iki Bar Haim was immersed in academia. He had completed a master's degree in sociology and was contemplating a Ph.D. in the field. At about that time, parents from the special education school that his son Udi attended asked for his help: They said there were few suitable frameworks - aside from closed facilities - for their children, following the point at which mandatory state-supported programs ended, at age 21.

"I decided this was the area that interested me," recalls Bar Haim, who, together with other parents and with Alin: The Israeli Society for Disabled Children, rented a small, rundown building in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ganei Tikva. They adapted it to the needs of their children, who suffer various degrees of mental and physical disability, and hired a small special educational staff. Thus was founded the Beit Noam day-care facility.

A few years later, the premises proved too small and Beit Noam moved to a former school building on the outskirts of Kiryat Ono, not far from Ramat Gan's Bar-Ilan University. Over the years, the institution has expanded into a tiny kingdom, full of color, light and activity.
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Each morning, Beit Noam's staff welcomes 72 young adults who originally hail from different parts of the country: from Kibbutz Yad Mordechai in the south to Zichron Yaakov in the north. Some are transported to the facility every day; others live in sheltered housing in the neighborhood. Most require motorized wheelchairs and some rely on special technologies to communicate with their surroundings.

By law, individuals requiring special education are provided with an educational framework until the age of 21. In years past, while their peers - after being discharged from compulsory military service - were making plans to enter university or traveling, special-needs people of that age found themselves in limbo. Beit Noam became a solution for them, where they could continue to develop creatively and in other ways in a group setting, by means of various activities, including therapy based on art, music and caring for animals.

"Our job," says Bar Haim, today Beit Noam's director, "is to adapt society to meet the needs of disabled individuals - not to adapt disabled individuals to meet society's demands."

The activity rooms, washrooms, swimming pool, petting zoo and outside areas have all been designed in line with the concept that the environment must be suited to the needs of everyone, whether "disabled" or "normal." For instance, the tables are built to accommodate wheelchairs, ramps have been installed, and so on.

Bar Haim: "Our students are disabled; this is a fact of life. But limitations and handicaps are socially conditioned. We believe we can create a society that is open to everyone instead of establishing separate tracks for the disabled. This is what lies behind our concept of universal design: We all have a minimal degree of accessibility at some point in our lives - a pregnant woman, a teenager with a broken leg, an elderly person with a walker - not just those we usually categorize as 'disabled.' That is why we must design a world suited to everyone's needs."

Beit Noam's staff includes social workers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, and hydrotherapists, as well as young women doing national service in a volunteer capacity as an alternative to the army, and high-school graduates participating in a year of volunteer service before their induction into the army.

Occupational therapist Tovit Sternberg began working at Beit Noam nine years ago as a National Service volunteer. After completing her studies, she returned to Beit Noam, as a member of its professional staff.

"Our goal," she says, "is to enable our clients to get to a point where they can enjoy an optimal degree of quality of life. We start with basic things - like learning how to take care of yourself - and then move on to more advanced areas, such as social integration. We try to provide people here with the same range of experiences enjoyed by their non-disabled peers. Because their world is limited, we introduce them to situations that, to an outsider, appear marginal."

Group coordinator Nir Weissman elaborates: "We had a young man who couldn't brush his teeth for years because his mouth was extremely sensitive. Last year, we managed to bring him to the point where he was able to do it and it became part of his morning routine. We want to maximize the happiness our students can experience. Our challenge is to reach the stage where we can communicate with them, listen to them and understand what they are saying. The key word is patience."

"Every day we come across a small thing that sheds light on a larger picture," explains Tirza Yarhi, a National Service volunteer. "Other people don't always understand what I'm talking about, so I tell them about the excitement I feel when a student has learned to do something new. The work here gives you so much satisfaction, plus I'm learning how to be more patient, more sensitive."

Steinberg: "My work with the clients at Beit Noam has taught me how to celebrate the little things of everyday life. This is an important skill that I can utilize when I finish my day's work. I feel I've made real progress when I have a significant encounter with one of our students, when I succeed in making contact."

Beit Noam is located in the heart of a residential area that includes a kindergarten and private homes. Unlike similar treatment facilities that have elicited objections among their neighbors, Beit Noam enjoys support from its surroundings, says Bar Haim. Indeed this is one of the objectives of his approach: to integrate disabled people into the real world and, at the same time, to involve the greater community in life at Beit Noam.

Bar Haim says that the center has succeeded on this level, "because we taught our neighbors to get used to our presence ... We all have handicaps. The difference is that our clients aren't aware that they must conceal theirs.

"Until not so long ago, blacks couldn't board certain buses in the United States, and in Israel in the 1950s vocational schools were built exclusively for Mizrahi Jews," he explains. "In Israel circa 2009, we exclude those who are different. In my opinion, this is what makes special education 'special.' If we integrated disabled youngsters into regular classrooms, non-disabled children would find themselves with a blind classmate on their right and a wheelchair-bound classmate on their left. With that kind of classroom experience, these non-disabled students would see nothing unusual in encountering disabled individuals on the street."

Daniel Aminov, 31, from Bnei Brak, arrived at Beit Noam six years ago. He uses a wheelchair that he operates with a joystick, and communicates by using a special board affixed to the chair, with a set of drawings. Through them he can, for example, tell staff that he would like to learn to use a computer, or spend more time in the swimming pool.

Nitzan Goldschmidt, who accompanied Aminov during our conversation, is a National Service volunteer at Beit Noam. Like other staff members, she plays a multifaceted role there, helping them communicate and complete various simple tasks.

"Some people think this sort of work is difficult physically or mentally. The truth is I do not find it hard at all. Like any other place, some days are better than others. There is less time to spend on such issues here, because we're always busy."