Hans van Deursen – UWC Atlantic College

“We gained his trust and helped him to be more confident”

This year at Atlantic College Wales launched a new project called “dysparity”.

 I was one of the lucky ones able to participate. We help people with disabilities. Children from age 6 to 12 come to us with disabilities such as: dyslexia, dyspraxia or something of the kind; and we, students from Atlantic College in co-operation with the professionals of the program ‘dysparity’, have designed different courses for these children, not only to improve their academic skills, but also their social ones; as people with the aforementioned learning difficulties often also have social problems, I began helping a child of 9, Matthew; at the start he was very much in himself and hardly talked to any of us, but, through learning games, we gained his trust and helped him to be more confident while teaching him the basics of the English language. It was great to see him improve over such a short period of time and a great learning experience. I got a training for helping children, but also for assisting the parents in the road to extra support for their child. I learned to get information out of parents without directly asking or confronting the parents with their child’s disability.

It made me very sad I had to say goodbye to Matthew relatively soon due to end of term, but we left with Matthew saying: “I have made three new friends”. Which was incredible for us, the parents were happy and Matthew regarded us as his friends, it felt wonderful!

Thank you for this great opportunity you gave us,

ddiolch 'ch!