ASIA/KAZAKHSTAN - Caritas Almaty: WhatsApp chat to support parents with children with Down syndrome

Saturday, 27 April 2019 caritas   disabled   children  

Almaty (Agenzia Fides) - Social networks and new technologies can be of help to the pastoral and social activities of the Catholic Church. This is demonstrated by an initiative of Caritas Almaty, Kazakhstan, which explains in a note sent to Fides: "A very important part of our work on the project of support to parents with children with Down Sydrome is the constant long-distance communication between parents and members of our team. This is extremely important for parents who feel supported in their everyday commitment of upbringing and rehabilitation of their children. In addition, it is important for “new” parents who join the existing group to learn about the main principles of our work. Thinking about both groups we decided to launch a WhatsApp chat which unites parents involved in the work of the Caritas center. From time to time we upload video tutorials in Russian and Kazakh languages where our team, with interventions from professor Sangalli and his colleagues, answer most common questions that the parents ask us".
The support project for families with children with trisomy 21 was launched by Caritas Almaty in August 2016: with the support of Italian specialists, seminars, lectures and specialist visits are periodically organized in different cities of Kazakhstan to provide basic knowledge to parents and analyzing children's progress. In fact, each of them is assigned a personal work program, which is periodically updated through continuous online collaboration, which allows parents to stay in touch with specialists. In the past few months, after a path that lasted about three years, the work team run by Sangalli managed to employ a 22-year-old by one of the major Kazakh companies: he was the first case in this central Asian country. (LF) (Agenzia Fides, 27/4/2019)


Share: