Enabling India
Outside of major metropolitan areas, India is literally an uphill challenge for the differently abled. Sidewalks are nonexistent. Stairwells are frequently built without railings. Homes and temples and even our own Guru Rimpoche statue are accessible only by rocky footpaths, like this one:
Travel in and out of the area is just as bad: few people own private cars, and usually get around by scooter, motorcycle, or non-kneeling bus. Much of the time, in our part of the world, “disabled access” actually means hiring a Bihari kid to run errands for you. As our tale of Sonnam Yutron and our Emergency Medical Fund demonstrated, just leaving the house can be considered a major accomplishment for a differently abled person.
So it was with more than a little interest that I began to hear about Savera Research and Rehabilitation Centre, a home-grown NGO (non-profit organization) dedicated to serving local disabled children. Savera, in Hindi, means “dawn.” The idea behind the name is the intention to help disabled children in the area experience newer and brighter days. Among other activities the organization sends out trained specialists to assess the children in the area, document their medical condition, and suggest courses of physical therapy or educational assistance for the child. The visits are recurring, so the Savera counselor has a chance to assess the child’s current condition and review any physical therapies with the child’s parents. The circuit Savera’s counselors travel is not small, when you consider that they serve not just Rewalsar proper, but many of the remoter hill villages that are barely accessible by bus or scooter.
Some days ago I was invited to a “camp” that Savera held in Rewalsar. At such camps parents are invited to bring their children down for registration in Savera’s programs, and have them assessed for therapy, hearing aids and wheelchairs. This is a part of the world where congenital defects and polio are still very prevalent. As I looked around at the various families, it struck me that these were the folks who were able to transport themselves and their children to the camp, while there must be dozens more families up in the surrounding villages who couldn’t get there.
The first step in the process was registration to determine which category the disabled child fit into.
After a brief discussion, the particulars would be entered longhand into a notebook. Bookkeeping out here is done by this method, whether it’s by an NGO, a shop, or a construction site. With Rewalsar’s random power outages, electronic bookkeeping isn’t as reliable as a pen and a piece of paper.
To one side of the room, a physical therapy-trained counselor assessed children with physical limitations, and suggested therapies. I’m not sure if the pictures show it all, so I’ve also taken a couple of videos–I should have them up soon.
(AVI video, 27MB)
To the other, a couple more of Savera’s counselors did field-testing for hearing problems, and supplied hearing aids for children who needed them.
(AVI video, 27MB)
Few smiles were more beautiful than the one on this young lady when she discovered she would be hearing things clearly for the first time in her life:
By far the most heart-tugging part of the camp was the distribution of the wheelchairs. As I mentioned before, Savera is a non-profit organization, scraping together what it can for supplies. And the supplies for this particular camp included a truck full of wheelchairs, costing R5500 (About US$140) apiece.
Six children merited wheelchairs; each one was ceremonially seated in his or her chair, and the parents given a quick tutorial in folding the chair, adjusting footrests, and operating the brake.
Just another day in a small hill town on the edge of the world.
