Monday, March 21, 2011

Visit to day care center - Vaxtrum

After a wonderful class on Swedish language with Ma'am Anna and Sir Antonio, we were divided into groups of three each during our lunch break. We got quite curious about the whole thing as to why were we divided suddenly out of no where, into small groups like these.. but then, never mind! We came to know that once we got into the class. Basically we were visiting three separate day care centers spread over Stockholm. And our group, which comprised of Dorothy ,Vibha and myself and our Swedish friend Badal Hossain went with Tove Virtanen to Vaxtrum Day Care Center which is situated right in front of Tullinge Gymnasium campus. This day care center is approximately 7 years old and comprises of 11 employees and 17 clients. Easily it seems like it is a part of the Gymnasium, but it's not. As we entered inside, Tove guided us to the first floor of the center. The floor consisted of the personal rooms of the clients who were physically and mentally disabled. The day care center basically looks after and takes care of clients who are very low at their intellectual level . We were told that these clients have a difficulty in carrying out even basic motor skills like sorting items, counting, etc. The main objective of the day care center thus follows to make them able to conduct themselves with the basic motor activities till the age of 65. The age factor comes here just because of a wonderful system which they follow. The clients here join at the age of 20, that is, just after they finish their school, and they can be there till the age of 65, the actual retiring age for a normal citizen in Sweden. Thus, this becomes as a workplace for such clients. Even such, that some of the rare clients, who can talk, say that they go to work in the center.She showed us different rooms having setups according to the requirements of each client such as they have weaving machine , paper shreading machine ,paints, etc . At the end of the day there is a special bus which drops these clients to their respective homes . At homes they are given similar treatment wherein they have personnel to see to their needs.
We had a lovely time knowing about the facilities provided for the clients and the way the employees work for them with a fun loving ,warm and non judgemental attitude.

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