Armenia | It’s a WONDER-ful Life | 1 May 2016

Success
The “It’s a WONDER-Ful Life” Program has left its unique fingerprint on the lives of the participant teachers, students and their parents. It has changed their perceptions of human ability and disability. “Wonder,” American writer R. J. Pallacio bestselling novel is about a young boy with severe facial disfigurements. The program was built around this and has generated strong interest not only among those teachers and students that were selected to be enrolled in the program but also among the general population of the target schools. Many students and parents borrowed the book from the participant students or waited for the program to finish to be able to get the book from the schools’ library to read. The participant students were so strongly impacted by the lessons of the program that many of them wrote songs, poems and letters to Auggie Pullman, the hero of the novel, to celebrate his successful struggle against discrimination and highlight the importance of social inclusion.

Overview
After the expiration of the grant, about 10 of the 50 involved high schools formed new groups of students and continued the program on their own. Metsamor School has not stopped the program and has implemented it in a sustainable way, making the book into one of the most demanding resources supporting inclusive education in Armenia.