SSU Students – Participants and Volunteers of III Regional Abilympics Championship
On 6 June in the Saratov College of Water Vehicles, Construction, and Services there was opened the III Regional Abilympics Championship on Professional Skills for People with Disabilities in the Saratov Region. Also there were awarded the winners of the 2019 Best Abilympics Volunteer of the Saratov Region contest.
The Abilympics is an international non-governmental movement, and its goal is to develop a system of contests in the Russian Federation aimed to improve professional counselling of people with disabilities and motivate that category of people to get education. The Abilympics volunteer team helps organise and moderate professional contests for people with disabilities. Also the volunteers take part in other socially important events directed to develop social and cultural inclusion in the society.
This year the Abilympics participants became students with disabilities from Saratov, Balakovo, Krasnyi Kut, Engels, and Rtishchevo. The audience was welcomed by Deputy Minister of Education of the Saratov region Lyudmila A. Grigoryeva. She expressed her gratitude to the championship moderators, its heads and partners. Lyudmila Grigoryeva wished the competitors to gain new victories. Besides, the deputy minister read out loud an address of Ministry of Education of the Saratov Region Irina V. Sedova.
The championship participants were also greeted and congratulated by Chair of the Council of Public Organisations on Patient Rights Protection of the Saratov Region Tatiyana M. Topilina, Chair of the Regional Division of the All-Russian Organisation of Parents, Children with Disabilities, and People with Disabilities over 18 Requiring Interest Intermediation Natalia A. Kovatsenko, and Director of the Education and Rehabilitation Centre for People with Disabilities entitled the Hope Sail Ekaterina S. Pyatkina.
After that the audience enjoyed the performance of children with disabilities who seemed not to be disturbed by their impairments.
The 2019 Best Volunteers of the Saratov Region were awarded within the contest opening ceremony. The regional contest was held in Saratov University. The competition itself took place from 16 May to 6 June. Its objective was to form and develop volunteering. The prize winners became three students of the SSU Faculty of Pedagogical and Special Needs Education. The 3rd place was taken by Irina Nikitina, the 2nd – by Anna Bessonova, and the 1st – by Anna Nakonechnaya. The certificates were given to them by Head of the SSU Office of Social Work Natalia P. Sergeyeva.
Head of the SSU Abilympics Volunteer Centre Tanzilya F. Rudzinskaya marked that the students had devoted 4 years of their lives to gain the victory. They had volunteered at different events – at festivals where children with disabilities had taken part and at the regional stages of various contests. The three students had helped as the Abilympics volunteers, too. They had gathered their portfolios for all the time they had studied at university.
A 4th-year student of the Faculty of Pedagogical and Special Needs Education Anna Nakonechnaya shared her expressions of the contest.
‘I did not expect that I would become the best volunteer. When I found out about the contest, I started gathering my portfolio. I always wanted to help people, and when I entered the course in special (speech pathology) education, I wanted to communicate with people with disabilities more often. That was why I became a volunteer.’
After the opening ceremony the championship members took part in the contest sections, participated in the panel discussion, and presented their projects.
All three SSU representatives became prize winners. A 1st-year student of the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technologies Dmitrii Suslin took the 3rd position in the Text Processing competence, while students of the College of Radioelectronics Dmitrii Yerokhin and Nikita Zinovyev – the 2nd and the 3rd positions correspondingly in the Database Administration competence.
The staff members of the Office of Social Work express their gratitude to the championship contestants and their pedagogues and wish them develop their professional skills.
