Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/postcard-from-malaysia-building-an-inclusive-community-in-an-outdoor-classroom/5025266/
When you have a child who is different, you may give him additional tools to cope, but he would still eat at the same dinner table. When the family goes on vacation, everybody is included. There are no special tables or special vacations just for the differently-abled children. Families are usually inclusive, with all the children playing, eating and having fun together.
This is what it means to be inclusive and it is the goal we should all move toward within our communities.
The Inclusive Outdoor Classroom has been admirably working toward this objective for the past three years. While there has been good progress, there is still much to be done. Largely, thinking of inclusivity remains an afterthought for policymakers. It is only a priority for the segment of society who have children who are differently-abled or who deal with special needs children on a regular basis. The majority still do not know what is inclusivity and why it is important. The endgame, as IOC founder Anne Sivanathan sees it, would be a world without special classes for those who learn differently, where all buildings can be easily accessed by everyone, and where policymakers include all segments of society.