José Filipe Rodrigues, permanent contributor to Folha 8 in the United States of America, was distinguished with the “Crystal Apple” Award by the Public School System of Fall River, Massachusetts, taking into account his performance as an occupational therapist in this school system.
The Superintendent of the Public School System of Fall River, Massachusetts, awarded the “Crystal Apple” Award to José Filipe Rodrigues, who works in Occupational Therapy in this school system, for the leadership shown in the performance of his professional activity, with students, co-workers and families.
José Filipe Rodrigues was nominated for the “Crystal Apple” Award by colleagues from the Fall River Administrators Association, Crystal Apple Recognition, Honorthework and Massachusetts Education.
The “Crystal Apple” Award honors individuals who distinguish themselves in activities linked to teaching, aiming at intervention/motivation for the use of students’ abilities to obtain the best possible academic success.
“The best reward I receive every day is the positive and constructive evolution that each of my “clients” demonstrates with my therapeutic interventions. The best offer we can receive is to be able to give more and more and better, and transform people into increasingly independent beings in the different activities they carry out”, said José Filipe Rodrigues to Folha 8.
Occupational Therapy defends a holistic ideal in intervention for the maximum use of each individual’s capabilities. Holism is a doctrine that conceives the individual as a whole that cannot be explained solely by the sum of its parts, but can only be understood in its integrity. It is, within the scope of human and social sciences, a conception that defends the importance of comprehensive understanding of phenomena and not the isolated analysis of their constituents.
José Filipe Rodrigues carries out his professional activity in pediatrics, with children who benefit from Occupational Therapy to improve developmental delays due, among others, to limitations in physical, health, emotional capabilities, learning, intellectual, autism and neurological difficulties, paralysis cerebral, Prader-Willi and Down syndrome.
José Filipe Rodrigues was born in Huambo, Angola, and lives in the USA. He studied Zootechnical Engineering, Human Resources Management, Business Management and Occupational Therapy at the University of Évora, Emmanuel College in Boston and the New England Institute of Technology.
In the USA he worked professionally in the textile industry and in psychiatric, geriatric and pediatric rehabilitation. He currently dedicates his intervention only to Pediatrics in the Public School System. He was a contributor to several newspapers, in Angola (such as Folha 8), Brazil, Portugal and the United States, and has published poetry and short stories in these countries.