Team:TECHNION-ISRAEL/Beit Hagalgalim
Tolerance To Oneself
“Beit Hagalgalim (House of Wheels)”
In an attempt to engage with the public and educate different segments of the population we collaborated with “Beit Hagalgalim”, an association for children with mental and physical disabilities. We decided to organize an educational activity based on the concept of "tolerance towards yourself" which focused on teaching self-acceptance , an important lesson for children who deal daily with adversity and being “different”.
The activity was an incredible success and the children cooperated amazingly, sharing their feelings, aspirations, and daily coping methods for the difficulties they encounter. The activity really left a mark on the kids and to date we still receive incredibly positive feedback both from the counselors and the children.
Description of activity:
We sat in a circle with all the children and in the middle of the circle we placed cards describing different positive personality traits. Each child was given a board containing 9 separate slots and each slot was assigned a question.
We then instructed the children to place the personality trait that most accurately described them in response to the question. For example in one slot the question was: "which personality trait of yours are you most proud of?" And each child selected a trait from the pool and placed it on their board.
After each child chose nine cards, we collected each participant’s cards and created a booklet as a souvenir that contained each child’s positive qualities .
Once we finished playing the game, we discussed specific cards that were chosen by children. We managed the discussion in the form of a bingo game so as to encourage children to take part in the discussion. Each child who chose to share his/her feelings or ways to handle difficulties with the group got to mark an X on their game board. That part was really surprising for us, the children cooperated amazingly and shared their feelings, aspirations, and coping with daily difficulties. For example, one of the kids, his name is David (fake name), shared with us that his biggest wish is to be able to walk alone. Other kid, Gal (fake name) said he wish to learn how to take a shower by himself. The little children tried to bring tips one to another, how to cope and what can they do to MAKE THEIR DREAMS COME TRUE!
Photos from the activity:
Department of Biotechnology & Food Engineering
Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
Haifa 32000, Israel
igem.technion.2017@gmail.com
