We offer various activities that assist in career guidance, professional training, and help with work placements for young people in difficult situations, including for the disabled, orphans and refugees. In our Centre, there are permanent courses in four areas in which 44 children are enrolled: working with felt, woodworking, cutting and sewing, and baking.
Felt and boiled wood
Our Centre has been running courses on working with felt and boiled wool for young people with special needs for six years now. All of these children have severe mental or physical disabilities. Working with felt is very useful for children diagnosed with Down syndrome, autism and psychiatric problems, since the process allows them to relax, reduces anxiety, and teaches them repetitive, simple, and interesting manual actions.
Working with boiled wool also helps the development of fine motility and creativity. In addition, our teacher not only work with children on technical aspects, but also introduces them to the history and tradition of the work of boiled wool, which has a centuries-old history in Kazakhstan.
At the moment, this workshop is very popular and has 20 young people with special needs currently attending. It is great to see their skills grow, and they are mastering the technique of producing felt products, creating even entire paintings. Some of the children’s products are put up for sale, so over time this workshop lends itself as a job opportunity for some of our young people. Therefore, this course is very important for the development and self-realisation of young people with special needs.
Working with wood
If most of our professional training courses are mainly popular amongst girls, the course "Working with wood" is definitely more demanded by our boys, although the course is open to everyone.
The students are trained under the guidance of a professional woodwork instructor. Last year we bought new specialised equipment, so that the work in the laboratory can be more interesting and varied. Young people with special needs are invited from the very first days to produce complex products, keeping in mind their individual abilities and trying to implement all their creativity.
The new equipment has also allowed us to expand the quantity of products made. We recently created a parallel course with two boys, where, under the supervision of our teacher, they learn to produce more particular wooden objects, which are then put up for sale. This year, the company MASP Artisan House wants to transform this new laboratory into paid work for the two boys involved.
Cutting and sewing
Our Centre began its professional training courses of cutting and sewing in 2012. The experience and methods of our teachers working with young people with special needs in this sector have since achieved excellent results. In 2019 was created the social enterprise MASP Artisan House, where we have seven girls with various diagnoses, such as Down syndrome, ASD and hearing problems, working. Essentially, the girls produce textile products that are then sold in three stores in Almaty, through online sales and small craft markets. Our girls are very good and have very high motivation.
The "cutting and sewing" courses run regularly, involving new children as well as those who have been attending for a long time. Sure enough, the volume of enrolment requests for these courses is very high . Work this each student is carried out according to their abilities, and so the results of each child can vary.
This course is very important as it teaches children with special needs a craft that they can carry out at home in the future.
We can
In 2022 we decided to expand and diversify our production, so we created two more jobs for young people with special needs. In January, we received equipment for printing on various types of fabrics and so we started making prints on fabrics sewn in our courses.
After learning how to use this equipment, we can now make products such as bags and personalised t-shirts. In May 2023 we oficially launched this new project, and now we need support to buy fabrics and accessories for production. In addition, we were supported in this project by "Qazaqstan Halqyna".
Bakery
The courses for baking organised by MASP have been running for more than 10 years, and the children and their families really love them. In these courses, the children learn recipes for cooking various baked goods and then put it all into practise. They knead dough by themselves, prepare fillings using knives and graters, and use the oven to cook everything, all of which happens under the guidance of our teacher. This course unites children not only for training, but also provides a good opportunity to meet and spend time together in an informal setting.
Currently, the course produces batches of cookies, which we use for our internal needs and which we also sell for parents and friends of MASP.
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