Empower Disabled Children & Mothers in Rural India

Project title: Therapeutics and Educational Intervention Programme for the Children with Disabilities and community mobilization through CBR.

Location of the Project: Community Rehabilitation Centre, Balidangri, Panskura, Purba Midnapore, West Bengal, India

Beneficiaries: 45 children with disabilities, 45 parents and 100 community people.

Goal: Enhancing the abilities of children with disabilities by providing rehabilitation services through Community Rehabilitation Centre

Objectives:

• To enhance the capacity of children by providing qualitative rehabilitation services. 
• To provide training for capacity building of the families and community to take care their children within the community. 
• To involve the community through different programmes for socio-economic rehabilitation. 
• To promote opportunity, participation and ensuring the rights of the Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).

Background:

The medical model and the social model are often presented as dichotomous, but disability should be viewed neither as purely medical nor as purely social: persons with disabilities can often experience problems arising from their health condition. A balanced approach is needed, giving appropriate weight to the different aspects of disability.

The ICF (international Classification of Functioning), adopted as the conceptual frame work for this World report on disability, under stands functioning and disability as a dynamic interaction between health conditions and contextual factors, both personal and environmental. Promoted as a “bio-psycho-social model”, it represents a workable compromise between medical and social models.

Understanding the concept Asha Bhavan Centre designed its CBR programme in the remote places of the districts of west Bengal. The project will promote home based early intervention, therapeutic and special educational intervention programme to the children with disability in the community involving parents from beginning to end as an equal partner of the rehabilitation process. This project also ensures the empowerment of parents and family, community mobilization and opportunity of the children with disabilities in the community. 

The organization started the rehabilitation support to the children with disability which include physiotherapy, speech therapy, multisensory therapy, ADL (Activities for Daily Living) management training, special education, behavior modification training and also training programme to the parents and family members of the children with disabilities at Panskura Community Rehabilitation Centre (CRC). The programme is supported by ReJenga Foundation from 1st April 2020.  The CRC runs under the Community Based Rehabilitation Division (CBR) of Asha Bhavan Centre. 

The programme will also ensure the accessible environment for the children with disability and aware the community regarding disability and the person with disabilities so that it can decrease the rate of childhood preventable disability in the community. The programme will involve the parents and other stakeholders to take the responsibility of the children.

Activities Conducted in Six months: 

• Through WhatsApp video calling we are continuing therapeutic session of 13 children who have smart phone.
• Regular interaction took place with 24 no of children via phone calls, as they family do not have smart phone.
• Home visit made to family to understand the situation during lockdown and guide home based rehabilitation programme.
• 42 children bring under NIRAMAYA health insurance scheme (an initiatives of Government of India to provide 1 lack annual insurance for health issues)
• We facilitated to 11 Children to enrolled for MANABIK monthly Pension scheme (MANABIK – A government of West Bengal Initiatives to provide monthly pension of Rs. 1000/- per eligible beneficiary).
• Home visit done to the beneficiaries’ house to assess the effect of Super Cyclone AMPHAN which hit West Bengal in May 2020.
• In support of Association ADL, Switzerland we provide Dry Ration Packages support to 52 family to give a relief in post Amphan Disaster. 
• The Centre repairment work is going on as some infrastructure damaged during this period. 

Activities Conducted in up to December 2020:

• The centre starts to function from 4th December 2020, maintaining the COVID protocol we called the children who need face to face interaction with the professionals in the centre. At present 05 children start to visit
• Through WhatsApp video calling we are continuing therapeutic session of 15 children who have smart phone.
• Regular interaction took place with 24 no of children via phone calls, as they family do not have smart phone.
• Distributed reusable face mask provided by Rejenga to 45 family 4 pcs to each family of this centre. 
• Facilitate to get disability certificate of 08 children from Government Medical Board.
• Home visit made to family to guide home based rehabilitation programme and help to enroll in government schemes.
• 44 children bring under NIRAMAYA health insurance scheme (an initiatives of Government of India to provide 1 lack annual insurance for health issues)
• We facilitated to 11 Children to enrolled for MANABIK monthly Pension scheme (MANABIK – A government of West Bengal Initiatives to provide monthly pension of Rs. 1000/- per eligible beneficiary).
• Home visit done to the beneficiaries’ house to assess the effect of Super Cyclone AMPHAN which hit West Bengal in May 2020.
• In support of Association ADL, Switzerland we provide Dry Ration Packages support to 52 families to give a relief in post Amphan Disaster. 
• The Centre repair and maintenance work is done which was damaged during this period.

Challenges Faced During this period –

This project started with ReJenga which began with the unpredictable COVID pandemic period. We faced a long term Lockdown, Mental Fear; people lost their Job, migrated worker back home with a history of journey and keep us isolated from all.  West Bengal also faced Super Cyclone Amphan in May 2020. Which divested the costal districts of west Bengal, no one roof’s was intact after the cyclone. Fortunately the project area was not faced such kind of disaster but people lost their remaining agricultural earning. 

In this situation Asha Bhavan Centre doing its level best to keep the children in track of rehabilitation process and help the distressed family. This is happened because of our donors and supporters who stand firmly with their whole hearted beside us to help children and their family. 

From December our all community centre including Panskura Community Rehabilitation centre open for support who are unable to reach by video calling programme. We are following all the norms and guideline of Government and WHO for COVID19 prevention, but in the same time the rehabilitation team work individualized rehabilitation programme remotely and take active role for ensuring to avail the available government facilities for the children and the families.  

You can still make a 2020 gift supporting ReJenga online.

All gifts postmarked by December 31 are eligible for deduction from your 2020 taxes.

This project focuses on the resources and knowledge available to alleviate

the immobility and poor physical conditions with the burden of poverty in sub-urban

KOlkata. The Global Disability Rights now presents the census of 66% of the

disabled population live in rural areas, while 78% of the overall population live in

rural India.

P l a n n e d   activities

• Assessment and profile making of children with disabilities - Child with disabilities   from the targeted Block and or Adjacent block of Purba Midnapore District will visit the Community Rehabilitation Centres & the Rehabilitation Therapist along with the special educator will assess the child with disabilities and fill up the individual profile sheet. Goal will be set for Target Physical activities or movement & cognitive & social skills for six month. Target activities & skills will be assessed after the six month & then next goal will be set for next six month.

• Provide Therapeutic Intervention Programme - Rehabilitation therapist will provide physiotherapy, Life Skills training,  Multisensory Therapy and basic speech therapy to the children with disabilities  by using   different materials like Standing board, gym ball, shoulder pulley, balance board, tumbler, bolster  Some physical exercise will be taught by the therapist. 

• Improve the cognitive & social skills through special education to the children with disabilities: Special educator will conduct the session for the cognitive development of the children according to the individual need of the children.

• Orientation of parents: Children with disabilities enrolled in Community Rehabilitation Centres spend most of their time with their parents in their home. So, parents’ are the best caregiver to handle their children. Considering this aspects, Parents Training programme will be conducted to train the parents to meet the rehabilitation needs of their children.
• Sensitization of the Community –Sensitization programme will be conducted in the school, Panchayat meeting, Gram Sabha or village meeting, ICDS, primary health centre meeting, Block  Primary Health centre meeting.  Field worker will organize the sensitization meetings to find out the target beneficiaries from the community.

• Community visit and Home based activities monitoring programme. : The Programme Officer (PO) and or the other professional will be visit the community and interact with various community people including community key influencer, leaders and grass root level worker to sensitize them regarding disability and link up them with our programme. The PO also visit the house of individual beneficiaries to monitor the home management programme the visit also followed by the therapist and special educator as and when necessary. 

• Referral services – The programme will ensure the proper guidance to the person with disability from the Community Rehabilitation Centre and from the community. the programme will liaison with available services in the community for the person with disabilities and also refer to them for specialize medical or social support. 

The project will be implemented in Panskura I Block of Purba Midnapore District.

 Panskura Block - Panskura is a community development block that forms an administrative division in Tamluk Subdivision of  Purba Midnapore district. It is located 26 km from Tamluk, the district headquarters and 80 km from Kolkata, the State headquarters and well connected by Train and Buses. Panskura CD Block has an area of 246.92 km2  having  225 inhabited villages in 14 gram panchayats. 

As per 2011 Census of India Panskura CD Block had a total population of 283,303, all of which were rural. There were 145,563 (51%) males and 137,740 (49%) females. Population below 6 years was 32,726. 139,533 (51%) males and 133,799 (49%) females. The population below 6 years was 37,804.

During this time, the rural areas are continuing to recover from the AMphan cyclone. The storm was the first super cyclone to form in the Bay of Bengal since 1999. Coronavirus restrictions have been hindering emergency and relief efforts in rural areas. Covid-19 and social-distancing measures made mass evacuations more difficult, with shelters unable to be used to full capacity. Panskura did recover, however we continue to help the community with food, clean water, soap and face masks. We will be providing all the families with 2 re-useable masks and ReJenga is having the vocational rehab make those. The vocational rehab center trains people with disability with  hand stitching and they will be making the masks. This in turn is providing them employment. At such unprecedented times, we continue to provide salaries to all the employees below:

Programme manager – one programme manager will be work with his extensive experience in implementing community based rehabilitation programs in West Bengal. The programme Manager is trained professional in Community Based Rehabilitation, Community Development, and Social Work. He is also specialized in Early Identification and intervention of Children with Cerebral Palsy working directly with the Queensland University as site coordinator of LEAP-CP research. Programme Manager will also perform the role of Coordinator, providing the induction to the Field Trainers, direct and indirect support throughout the duration of the project.

Rehabilitation therapist – She/he is responsible to maintain Physiotherapy, physical management, ADL training and other physical developmental activities. They also made assessment using various assessment tools and checklist. They also make the goal, strategy planning for development and evaluate the progress of individual children. 

Special Educator– one Full time qualified Special Educator will be responsible for educational assessment using standardized educational tools and make children cognitive developmental goal. The work closely with caregiver to develop the cognitive level. He will report to the programme manager for the development and other issues. 

Field Programme Officer – She/he are responsible to hold various community meetings and sensitization programme with the community key influencers. PO maintains the liaison with the community organization and government institute. They also visit villages to make survey and monitor the home based activities. P.O facilitates to avail governmental facilities, school admission and other inclusive measure.

To remain a sustainable care center, where by, we cannot have the families and children come by, to maintain social distancing and decrease the spread of COVID 19, ReJenga continues to pay the salaries. The therapist is however, trying to provide telehealth to the children.