Dubai: The UAE Ministry of Community Development (MOCD) has issued a training curriculum for Mashagel vocational rehabilitation and employment for people of determination. The facility will be available at the ministry’s centres through individual training plans, in keeping with the needs of the beneficiaries.
Wafa Hamad Bin Sulaiman, Director of Welfare and Rehabilitation Department at MOCD, said: “This curriculum is the first of its kind in the UAE, targeting people of determination outside the rehabilitation centres as part of an initiative to develop vocational rehabilitation programmes to meet the demands of the labour market, based on the national policy for empowering people of determination — specifically under the ‘vocational rehabilitation and employment’ pillar.”
Clear and systematic approach
She added that the curriculum targets affiliated members of Mashagel Centres who have intellectual disabilities and wish to be trained in a wide range of professional, social and behavioural skills that qualify them to enter the labour market by establishing their own projects with the support of their parents. This integrated training process, rehabilitation and self-operation requires a clear and systematic approach by trainers at Mashagel centres to help ratify individual training plans for each student after going through an assessment phase to know his or her capabilities and training needs.
Bin Sulaiman revealed that 110 people of determination joined Mashagel centres all over the UAE, of which, 14 students graduated by opening their own private projects, such as bracelets and hydroponics for people of determination. The ministry continues to support them by marketing their products in e-marketplaces and exhibitions and implementing an expansion plan to receive more people of determination who face challenges in the competitive labour market.
Wide range of training
Bin Sulaiman emphasised that the ministry was keen to form a vocational rehabilitation curriculum for Mashagel projects, including the foundations of measuring the current level of each student’s performance, a wide range of training, educational, social and behavioural objectives that can be selected in accordance with the abilities of each student and appropriate training and educational methods.
She explained that Mashagel vocational rehabilitation curriculum unifies work in various training workshops to help adopt a unified methodology with clear measurement and evaluation foundations, follows-up the student’s progress in achieving a set of training goals and plans.
Achieving occupational independence
Mashagel curriculum includes knowledge skills related to hydroponic workshops within the Community Farming project, bracelet workshops, behavioural skills, marketing skills, including public speaking and financial transactions, cooperative skills, enhancing the skills of parents as partners in the home-training process to achieve occupational independence of the affiliated members of Mashagel centres.
