A delegation from the Australian embassy headed by the Australian ambassador to Lebanon Glenn Miles visited the “Al-Hadi Institution for Hearing and Visual Impairment and Language and Communication Disorders”. He was received by the director general of Al-Mabarrat Charitable Association Mohammad Baqir Fadlallah, the institution's director Ismail Al-Zein and directors of sections and departments at the institution.
The visit began with a presentation of the institution's activities, its aims and its educational accomplishments and of its students' activities, their inclusion and their creativity.
Afterwards the delegation toured several classes of the institution's schools and the vocational school, and learned about the educational methods and the ways of using technology in teaching. It also toured the therapy rooms and listened to explanations about the therapeutic rehabilitation programmes - language therapy, occupational therapy, sensory integration, hydrotherapy and physiotherapy - the snoezelen relaxation room, the laboratories for teaching robotics and mathematics, the school libraries specific to the deaf and the blind, and the press for printing books in Braille.
At the close of the tour Miles opened the new water purification station funded by the Australian aid office.
Miles expressed his thanks to the institution “for this wonderful visit and this wonderful school”, and his admiration for “the equipment and the facilities for people with special needs, and for the administration and the teachers and especially its pupils”.
He said: “I noticed the devotion, the support and the love, and the focus on capacities. Australia is proud to have supported Al-Hadi Institution over the years, especially in the recent period, when Australia, through the ‘desalination planet' project, established a water purification station and secured clean water to preserve the children's health.”
The visit closed with the presentation of a symbolic artistic gift to the Australian ambassador from the pupils' work, then a lunch at the Al-Saha Heritage Village in his honour and in honour of the delegation accompanying him.
