We should be treated as individuals who can succeed in life

After completing primary education in a special school for children with visual impairment “Dimitar Vlahov”, Filip and his family decided that he will continue the education in a mainstream secondary school. This was not an easy decision to make.  

“The main advocate for mainstream school was our family friend Kristijan-Kiko Lazarevski - a prominent inclusion activist and blind himself. He said that going to school side by side with my peers would give me more opportunities to prosper and live an independent life. “ 

Watch the video to get to know Filip and learn more. 

Video transcript

“I was afraid of how I would be accepted by my classmates, how I would cope with the material, whether I would master the material... I think that if I had gone to an inclusive school from the start, it would have made a huge difference in communication. That it would be easier for me to communicate with my classmates now.”

“The school is paved with tactile paths. Of course, this made navigation that much easier for us blind people. I get along with most, if not all, teachers. Often times in physics, for example, when we learn about vectors, the teacher gets up and shows me how it looks, with pencils or whatever she finds. So that I can have a picture of what those vectors, lines or whatever we are learning about look like. The math teacher said that because of her attempts to explain the material to me, she became a better teacher for all students.”

“The most important thing missing are textbooks, scanned, corrected textbooks. I know that some readings are available in audio form on some websites, but most of the readings are not.”

“In the future I'm planning to do something around programming because I know it's possible. I know a blind person who programs, who is a programmer. We should not be treated as individuals who cannot do some things on their own. We are not people who will need help at every step of life. And we can, with difficulties of course, live our lives.”

The right to education is a fundamental human right, guaranteed to every child, through a range of legally binding international instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The right to inclusive education applies to every child, including children with disabilities. An inclusive education system accommodates all students whatever their abilities or requirements, at all levels – pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, vocational and life-long learning. It means children are learning together in the same classrooms and in the same schools. Inclusive systems value the unique contributions students of all backgrounds bring to the classroom and allow diverse groups to grow side by side, to the benefit of all.