Special Beiriz – Inclusive Pedagogical Kitchen

The current space in which we have our activities is an old and inadequate kitchen, with a counter too high for our students to reach, barely functioning equipaments and sparce furniture. This area needs an urgent intervention in order to become more functional for all students, more accurate to the age gap and, therefore, more inclusive.

The “Especial Beiriz – Cozinha Pedagógica Inclusiva” Project (Special Beiriz – Inclusive Pedagogical Kitchen) is aimed at 16 students with permanent special needs. Their ages range from 10 to 15 years old and they all attend elementary school. This Project intends to give them the ability to have a more productive life, being able to develop an independent and entrepreneurial life, mainly in what regards culinary production.An arquitect has alrealdy offered to design the new kitchen, having in mind the following goals:

• To have the required safety conditions to allow an equal learning among students, always considering the entrepreneur perspective since the group has already enough products to sell in a two-weekly market that takes place at school.
• To organize the space through different areas in order to teach safety and higiene habits (for instance, higiene area - for washing hands; dressing up area – to put the uniforms on; storage area – to store and preserve food; clean pantry - for confection of food; dirty pantry – for garbage deposit and washing area), taking into account the fact that some of the students may have this as a pre-professional experience.
• To make a more organized and accessible kitchen for all students (for example, lowering the kitchen counter, enabling the access for students in a wheelchair).
• To promote the multisensorial stimulation, the comfort and well-being of the students with more severe disabilities through the requalification of the space with bright colors (for example, by covering and painting the walls with bright colors in which it will be possible to post recipes and goals to achieve, and also by placing a plywood panel covered with a film of “chalkboard” suitable to write on with chalk), which will allow them to use the space also to explore sensations of taste, sight, touch and/or smell.
• To purchase equipment and functional materials which, from a technical point of view, are crucial to the acquisition of autonomy and development of several activities (such as the acquisition and installation of an electric plate, electric oven and fridge).

Perspetiva do projeto!

About the author

My name is Gracinda Cadilhe and I’m the responsible teacher for the special needs group at “Agrupamento de Escolas Campo Aberto – Beiriz”. As my colleagues and students, I share the wish of making this kitchen a pleasant, functional and appropriate space where we can build an intervention area to be appreciated by all.

I’m specialized in Special Needs – Risk Factories by Universidade do Minho, in Portugal, and I always try to apply my creative mind and entrepreneur spirit into the intervention I make among my students. Therefore, I’m constantly trying to promote projects that fit their individual characteristics, as well as preparing them to life in society and future employability.

Budget and due dates

Kitchen furniture: 3440,0 €
Kitchen equipment: 845,00 €
Construction: 715,00 €
If we have success with this campaign, we hope to finish next school year 2015/2016 in our new facilities. After the formalization of this campaign, we hope to achieve the financial support until January, 19th!

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