Interview - Pink Crocodile: bringing happiness to both children and their parents
Pink Crocodile turns to children with special needs. We provide them with high-quality education, services, and an extensive integration programme. Would you like to learn more what we do? Then read on…
Questions to Dagmar Herrmannová, Co-founder of Pink Crocodile and project manager for developing countries and the Czech Republic, Director of the Pink Crocodile School:
What kind of children do you have in your programme?
Pink Crocodile is an organization which supports children with hearing impairment and children with complex needs in Czech Republic as well as internationally. In CR we have founded and operate a special school called Pink Crocodile School which is based in Prague. Most of the children in our programme have severe forms of disabilities which makes it difficult to educate them even in the existing chain of special schools in CR. These children often have sensory impairment (hearing impaired, visually impaired) and an additional learning or physical disability. This is furthermore often combined with different health conditions such severe forms of epilepsy, heart problems or rare syndromes.
How old are the children in the school and what can you tell us about the employees who take care of them?
We have children of Kindergarten and elementary school age as well as babies at our early intervention programme. For all of them them we provide not only education, but also therapies, services, an intensive integration programme and we have a programme supporting their families. We have experienced special educators and therapists of which some also have been trained abroad.
That must be very expensive. What about funding? What forms the bulk of your costs?
We receive part of our funding from government subsidies; some money comes from fundraising. In the future, we would like to expand the school to a Pink Crocodile Centre in order to cover all the needs of our current children which are growing up and to help more children interested in being part of our programme. Pink Crocodile School’s aim is also to expand to respite care and palliative care services (children hospice) for children with progressive diagnostics. This is our future plan and dream.
When do you plan to have your new centre completed?
We would like to have it open in September 2018, and so we’re devoting our full attention to it.
What are the foundation’s plans for the next year?
Our current priority is to expand and build up the new centre (early intervention, Kindergarten, elementary school, respite care, children hospice, multisensory garden, city farm) to serve the children of any age and cover any needs or services they need under "one roof".
These children are the part of our society and deserve to live a fulfilled life as other children do. Their abilities, skills and achievements make them special not their special needs. They can do everything as other children, they just need more help to do so.
For any support we are thankful.
Questions to Ulrike Schneider, Director of Finance at Pink Crocodile School and chairman of the supervisory board of Pink Crocodile:
Special needs children, special care. It must be very expensive. Is it hard to find money for the school and children and what do you have to do in that regard?
Yes, indeed it is. Care for special needs children is much more expensive than running a normal school or Kindergarten, since we cannot have just one teacher for twenty children. There are many cases where one child needs its own assistant. Currently, we are still far away from what we would really need and what is the standard in other EU countries.
What do you currently need the most?
We need various things. Primarily we started fundraising for new centre, but we are also in need special equipment for children (for example special chairs, special furniture, therapeutic equipment).
And we need the support for our school bus.
What would you say to potential sponsors?
We would like to send a message – that we see our main role not to only collect money for this school, but help to make positive changes to the system here in Czech Republic, since other European countries offer much better support for these children. With more funding we can make a change. For example: we have a school bus for children, and in the Czech Republic this is not the norm. If I were to draw a comparison to my home country of Germany, it is a standard to get special needs children safely to school by bus. We are currently funding this service through donations. And we are trying to show how important it is that children can safely get to school on their own, without their parents.
It is Christmas time. Do you think it is easier to get money form sponsors before Christmas?
Absolutely! Many more events are taking place now in support of charity activities. It is therefore easier to get more people involved at this time a year.
Do you have any Christmas plans for your children?
We have our annual Christmas party for children, and we also invite parents and sponsors to come and see their performance.
And what about your plans for the next year? How much money do you need to satisfy the needs of your children?
That’s good question. We have two areas where we need financial support. One thing is funding to operate the school in such a way to make up for the deficit that we currently have. The 100% state donations we receive don’t cover our full cost as these donations are set to budgets of standard special schools. But we are exceptional because we educate the children, which have severe complex needs, which requires more funding. This includes, for example, therapists who are helping our children. Further funding we need to cover is also our school bus operation.
Looking to expand into a much larger centre incl. a special needs Kindergarten and elementary school, respite care and palliative care services, we are looking for several millions towards a new building and facilities. We started to search for sponsors and will be happy for any help.
Do you have any message to people who could perhaps send some support?
Some people can help more than others. We are happy for any help and any support we can get. It is the willingness to help, which counts for us. Financial contributions can be made by bank transfer, paypal or through SMS with the DMS payment service. All information is on our website www.pink-crocodile.org.
Could you send a message to all healthy people who don’t know anything about special needs children?
These children are an equal part of our society and should be taken that way. People should keep their eyes open and see what effort their parents make to raise a special needs child. One should support these children and families, and not isolate them. Thank you.
Support projects that make sense. You can find the information about the possibilities of financial support for the organization Pink Crocodile HERE.
