REGE's Disabled Children's Project - India
PROJECTS
1
Community Based Rehabilitation
REGE’s Disabled Children’s Project India was set up to enable children to receive education, either at home or in a mainstream school, or nursery and the service continues to go from strength to strength.
Our community workers visit a group of remote villages daily, working alongside teachers to support disabled children in school with specialised resources and teaching techniques. Therapists provide physio-, speech and behavioural-therapy assessments and develop an individual programme for each child. For those children unable to attend school the team makes regular home visits.
Since 1999 our service has helped 164 children and, alongside our Indian project partners, we are keen to set up another CBR service so that we can reach children in other areas.
Sohail, aged six, has cerebral palsy and is one of the new children to benefit from this service in 2012
2
Early Intervention Project
In 2010 we launched our Early Intervention programme to identify and diagnose children at risk between the ages of 0-3 years.
By identifying early signs of disability in young children, our team can reduce and even remove the effects of the disability through speech and physiotherapy, the provision of special educational support, and advice and guidance to the family. We also work to raise general awareness for villagers regarding preventative measures and general child health.
In 2017 we created a second Early Intervention Centre at the far end of the Shimla Bypass Road. We visited this centre in 2019 and were really pleased to see how well it is going.
We help children like Abdul Rehman, above, a five year old boy with cerebral palsy. Abdul wasn’t able to sit, but thanks to regular physiotherapy can now sit with support and attends the local nursery (anganwadi). Without REGE’s Disabled Children’s Project, Abdul and many others like him would face a life confined to bed.
3
Disabled People's Groups
Our support does not stop when they leave school. Towards the end of their education, REGE’s Disabled Children’s Project assists disabled adults to form groups with a bank account where they can access funding in order to identify their skills and interests and then link into appropriate vocational opportunities with the local community in order for them to start earning an income.
We are now working in partnership with the Hope Centre to support Disabled People's Groups in the Dehradun District. We are offering these groups and initial grant to purchase vocational equipment or access training. Following that they can apply for a no-interest loan if required to further their vocational idea.
We met one of these groups as part of our 2019 trustee visit and were really encouraged to hear their stories of the benefits of being part of this group, the vocational training they had accessed and their plans for future vocational enterprises. This was really inspiring to hear and we are keen to continue to support these groups.
4
Training
REGE’s Disabled Children’s Project runs awareness raising sessions for teacher, children, parents and healthcare professionals, increasing their understanding of the nature of disability and measures that can be taken to reduce its effects on the life of the individual, as well as attitudes in society and the promotion of equality.
5
Mobile Out Reach Project
This is one of our newest ventures which supports those families in more remote areas of North India.
In the remote areas of Uttarakhand, services for the intellectually disabled are practically non–existent. Therefore after a couple of pilot projects in these remote areas, we have decided to establish a Mobile Outreach Programme in the i6 blocks of Dehradun where facilities related to disability are either non existent or are highly inadequate.
A team of 2 Special Educators have been assigned this project. We have worked with the Samvedna Project (Associated with Landour Community Hospital, Mussoorie) in the following ways:-
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Training their volunteers (15) to identify special needs.
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Assisting with assessment of children; some come to the centre but most are based in nearby villages and the volunteer goes to the village.
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Volunteers are being taught how to draw up IEPs.
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We suggest activities for the goals selected.
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We are now starting to visit children in the Anganwadis and primary schools that the children are attending.
We have also assisted with assessment at certification camps
We are keen to continue working with this project and it is likely that in the next year we will need to make 6-7 visits. It is likely that we will cover 30-35 children over the period of a year.
