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	Blind students at Sekolah Luar Biasa - A Pembina Tingkat Nasional follow along with their lessons in Braille textbooks. Helen Keller International’s OVC program is working with Sekolah Luar Biasa - A Pembina Tingkat Nasional to increase the organization’s capacity to serve BVI and MDVI students in South Jakarta

There are an estimated 30,000 children of school age who are blind or visually impaired (BVI) living in Jakarta. It is estimated that less 2% of these students regularly attend school.

Like Helen Keller, HKI believes that every member of the human family has the right to education. regardless of any limiting factors of the human condition. Through the development of Inclusive Education systems in Jakarta and in partnership with the Government of Indonesia and other local partners, HKI is developing the systems and capacity for BVI citizens to access their right to education.

What specifically is Inclusive Education.? Inclusive Education is an ideology that focuses on the human right to education. Access to education should never be barred , regardless of any limiting factors of the human condition. This includes such factors as, race, creed, ethnicity, socio-economic status, disability, or distance.

Inclusive Education in Jakarta has been recognized as a major need by both the Provincial and National governments. In the1980’s, HKI was instumental in organizing the first efforts towards Inclusive Education for Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI) students in Indonesia. This population has traditionally been largely unserved. Since the 1980’s however, little has been accomplished. This initiative aims to build the capacity of the exisiting system from early intervention through to the integration of BVI.students from special schools into regular schools on the primary and secondary school levels.

A 5th grader in South Jakarta has her prescription for eyeglasses refined by a refractionist from IROPIN. HKI’s school based eye care program is part of OVC’s community outreach efforts and is implemented in partnership with the Jakarta Eye Center and IROPIN.

HKI is implementing this program by using the ideology that the objectives of this program pursue: Inclusion. To create a system based on inclusion, the process by which it is sought should also be inclusive. By conducting our strategic analysis with our partners, by designing the solutions to the challenges identified, and by locating resources and strengths together HKI and partners are developing a program that is sustainable. The process of inclusion allows us to build the most effective system and foster a community of collaborators with aligned goals achieved through a system owned by the collaborators and implemented through shared responsibilities and interdependent success.

Objective: To develop an inclusive education approach for low vision and blind youth to serve as system wide model to develop inclusive education -through curriculum development, training, strategic alliances and public awareness.

Structure: OVC consists of 4 major phases: Phase 1 – Situational Analysis, Phase 2 – Strategic Planning, System Development, and Building the Collaborators Network, Phase 3 – Implmentation of System Wide Intiatives, Phase 4 – Monitoring and Evaluation, Faclitation of Early Adoption by Government Resources, and Expansion of Susccessful Program Initiatives.

Current Status: Currently the OVC program is implementing Phase 3. During Phase 1 & 2 it became evident that there was a lack of organization and alignment among the few existing services for BVI students. In order to implement Phase 3, HKI dedicated much of its time to forming a collaboration of organizations that have worked to create standard tools for evaluation and implmention, including curricullum alignments to standard student and family assesment tools. Drawing on the success of phases 1 & 2, Phase 3 began in late May. This phase is scheduled to be completed by January 2005 and is focused on implmenting these new systems through a structure of colloboration. Phase 3 includes: early intervention facility enhancement and expansion; early intervention training module development and TOT; creation of Resource Teacher System; implmentation of Resource Teacher Training and TOT; budgetary restructuring efforts; student identification, assessment and enrollment; continued advocacy; LSM capacity building.Our goals is to improve the quality of and access to education for low vision and blind students in Jakarta; to improve their rights as citizens and improve their capacity to be productive members of society for themselves and their community.

CONTACT: David S. Spiro, OVC Program Director -dspiro[at]hki-indonesia.org HKI Indonesia - Jl. Bungur Dalam 23 A-B Kemang, Jakarta 12730 Indonesia Phone: 62.21.719.9163 | Fax: 62.21.719.8148