SERBIA
Building a Sensory Room for Children
Children with disabilities have the same needs as other children, they just need additional support to reach their full potential.
In partnership with the Municipality of Tutin, UNDP Serbia launched a crowdfunding campaign to support the kindergarten launch and equip a sensory room to ensure children with disabilities can enjoy their childhood to their maximum.
Tutin, one of the poorest and least developed municipalities in Serbia, lacks the proper equipment in the preschool education system for children with developmental or behavioral disorders and are in need of financial aid and professional staff to rid of this gap. Sensory rooms entail the use of soft walls and floor coverings, mats and pillows, water-filled tubes through which balls of different colors move, projectors, music armchairs, multi-part soft cubes, interactive whiteboards, and sprays with essential oils and are utilized in various ways according to the treatment needed for each child. They assist children gain basic skills for everyday life such as unbuttoning and buttoning buttons, zippers and belts, tying knots, bows and cleaning clothes, shoes and space. Mila Hadzic, a defect ologist and speech therapist working at the kindergarten “Habiba Stocevic” explains that by “stimulating the senses of sight, hearing, smell and touch, this equipment relieves the tension of children with disabilities and encourages their independence.”