COMMUNITY BASED REHABILITATION

Community Based Rehabilitation

Rusheel Nayak

            Because everyone enjoyed working in the play therapy department during the center day on Day 4, we decided to see how CORD works with the disabled in the community.  Overall, it was a great experience because we saw a spectrum of cases and disabilities.  Many of the children we visited had cerebral palsy and some children had a variety of syndromes as well  The main role of the community based rehabilitation is to make life comfortable for the disabled by giving them avenues to function in society as well as they can.  CORD also works to reduce discrimination against these kids.

            Although most of the children have difficulty interacting with others, we were all encouraged by one of the children with cerebral palsy.  Through hard work and support from CORD and the family, the child is able to go to school, walk, talk (haltingly), and is currently ranked #1 in her class.  This experience turned out to be excellent because it showed us the difficulties involved in having a disability in India.  However, through CORD’s work, everything is slowly beginning to improve in the rural villages.

Meera Parat

Meeting with the 5 disabled children was a whole new experience for us. We learned about how their disabilities came about. Many were born with Cerebral Palsy, or some other disease, but some also had an incident early on which caused them to have a disability. It was nice to see that the families had accepted it and now they were just trying to make the best out of the child’s life. Some cases were mild while others were worse, and this came about from how early on the child was diagnosed and started treatment. Our last stop was at a boy’s house, whose left leg got burned in a fire when he was young. Ever since, he has been walking around with a crutch or with a fake leg. He is in 11^th grade, and is a star player on his cricket team. He has high hopes for the Special Olympics in Shimla. Even though he only has one fully functioning leg, he still works in the field and lives like a normal high school boy.

Krishna Narra

Despite our lack of knowledge in the exercises regarding the disabled children, our group made a great effort to try and interact with them.

Sonali Nayak

Working with the CBR department was very interesting. We worked with kids with all types of disabilities. Some kids had cerebral palsy, a physical disorder, while others had autism and extreme forms of mental retardation. Two cases were very encouraging. In the first case, a young four-year-old girl had cerebral palsy. This condition was developed because she did not cry for five minutes after birth. However, because she was diagnosed early, she was able to walk and talk relatively well. She had greatly improved after just a year of treatment, so it was reassuring to know that she would continue to get better with CORD’s help. In the second case, CORD’s work was very evident. This girl was eight years old with cerebral palsy. She was able to walk well, with only a slight limp/weakness on the right side of her body. Because of all the treatments, she could also talk. She attends school, like all the other kids, and she loves to watch Bollywood serials. These cases gave me hope that conditions such as cerebral palsy could be improved so that kids of all ages could live normal lives.

Gowtham Raja

            Working with these disabled children was an experience that didn’t fail to amaze us. We watched as these children who had such a barrier in their life were able to enjoy little things like meeting us. One of the girls we met was surrounded by family the whole time as the CORD worker was guiding her through exercises. Her cousin brother was whispering things into her ear to make her laugh and treating her very lovingly. Watching him care for her and try to make her happy was quite moving for me as I saw how these children who lacked physical health as well as financial support were able to smile and laugh through the love that they felt from other people.