DISABILITY
Mitali Kalita is a fourteen (14) year- old girl from Bhalla village in Rani Block, Kamrup district. Mitali suffers from Cerebral Palsy. Despite of her disability, her parents Dhiren Kalita and Putuli Kalita were keen on giving her a good education. They enrolled her in a school, but as time passed, her parents and teachers noticed she could not understand or grasp things like normal children. Her parents lost hope of her recovery and pulled her out of school when she was in Class 4. Instead of spending more time with Mitali, they started focusing on raising her other siblings.
When ACRD’s Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) worker came to know of Mitali’s condition, they approached her family and counselled them. They also learned that Mitali’s peers and the school environment was not conducive or supportive towards her because of lack of awareness about children with disabilities. Our CBR field workers held a counselling session with her teachers and discussed about her condition and how it can be managed. Mitali was eventually re-enrolled in the same school by her parents, whose hopes of giving their daughter a good education renewed. Mitali has now completed her lower primary education and is now in middle school. Her father and younger sister help her go to school. She is also given home-based education and rehabilitation support by our field workers. Mitali is showing signs of improvement in her physical development and has also made progress in her learning capacity.
Sengrik Sangma is seven-year-old child with speech and hearing disability. He is from Moirapur in Rani Block. His parents never put him in a school because they thought his condition would deter him from learning. Through our Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programme, Sengrik was indentified and our CBR field worker intervened. They counselled his parents and persuaded them to put him in a formal school. Our field workers simultaneously started providing him home-based education support. They also helped him get a disability certificate and started to teach him Indian Sign Language (ISL). Even his parents were trained in ISL. Our field workers are trying to teach ISL to the neighbouring children for better communication with Sengrik. He now regularly goes to school and interacts with non-disabled children with ease. His is also given home-based education support by our field workers. Sengrik can now write all the alphabets, count from one to 10 and can also indentify his parents’ name.
