(Oranjestad)—Yesterday, the Foundation for the Mentally Disabled Aruba (SVGA), held its own carnaval celebrations. Our reporter sat down with Mrs. Elvira Tromp, director of the ‘Man na Obra’ Center—one of the funding departments, who explained a little more about the celebration and the foundation.
“After two years, we at SVGA are happy to able to celebrate Carnaval again with all of our funding departments. Thanks to the cooperation of the general manager at Renaissance Wind CreekCasio, who collaborated with SVGA for many years already, we were able to celebrate carnaval at the Renaissance Convention Center,” Tromp said.
For SVGA, it is tradition to celebrate Carnaval and they have been doing this for 20 years already at the convention center. She explained that clients are the ones that are always asking for Carnaval celebrations each year.
During the last two years, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the foundation could not keep up with its tradition. However, clients and employees were finally able to celebrate together: “We are happy to be together again to celebrate Aruba’s 69th annual Carnaval,” Tromp expressed.
Tromp pointed out that in previous years, it is true that different clients of theirs participate in the Carnaval parades, sometimes joined by the foundation too or other parties. They also have clients whose parents also include them in the parades. However, as an organization, they did not partake in the public festivities this year. “Hopefully we will able to stimulate our clients to join the parades again,” she added.
Tromp continued explaining that the pandemic affected the foundations and its clients, and this made it so that most clients were not able to get full time assistance. They could only be provided with assistance a few days in the week at best.
For this reason, the foundation had to modify their programs; everyone needed to get accustomed to social distancing, face masks etc. Now that everything is back to normal, Tromp expressed that they are very happy, but are still taking necessary precautions.
In terms of this year’s expectations for this foundation, Tromp remarked that they would like to see more inclusion of their clients within the Aruban community: “Don’t ignore them because they are disabled; they are also a part of our community. Wherever possible, include them, invite them, and let them participate alongside the rest of the community,” she highlighted.
SVGA was officially founded on December 9th, 1964, under the name “Stichting ter behartiging van de belangen van het gehandicapte kind” (Foundation for the protection of the interests of the disabled child). The organization’s mission is to take care, guide and teach disabled people self-development according to their disability. The goal is to provide care and higher education to those with disabilities, so they can also have a chance at a high-quality life within the community, where their care takers, professionals and the clients themselves can work together.
SVGA has different departments. It consists of an elementary school (Scol Duna un Man), where children attend up to the age of 16. The department of Bibito Pin, which is a day care for children who are just starting out, also accepts children from the ages of 2 up to 16 years old. Depending on the development of the child, they will evaluate where the child may go next, whether it is school or another department.
The department of Briyo di Solo is also a day care for adults starting from the ages of 16. Adults stay in this department until they are ready to participate in the department’s initiative. The same counts for the Man di Obra Center, where they take children of 16 years of age. These children stay in the department until they are ready to participate with the center’s goal initiative.
