DDF Does Disability Day!

At the most recent DDF meeting on October 23rd, the group decided that rather than celebrate World Disability Day in separate functions in each organisation, we would all come together for a joint event on Nov 28th.

BADHTE KADAM - an initiative of the National Trust - is a multi-state road trip by four separate teams who will be traveling around India celebrating diversity, promoting the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability and creating awareness about the specific National Trust concerns for people with intellectual impairments.

The road trip steams into Dehradun on Nov 28th and the DDF will be the welcoming committee. From 3:30 to 5:30, we will hold a mela at the Rangers College FRI Extension (near Parade Ground) in which there will be music, dance, games and fun activities, along with food and drink stalls, exhibitions, balloons and other surprises.

As the first public action by the DDF, this one is full of excitement and promise and we are all looking forward to the experience of sharing a common platform here in Dehradun.

ASHA Internship Program

ASHA or Accredited Social Health Activist acts as an interface between the community and the Public Health System. An ASHA comes from within the community and hence her understanding and reach amongst the people can rarely be matched. According to estimates each ASHA is responsible for a thousand people.

Being in this position, her role in developing awareness for health services is critical and it is essential that she understands “disability”. From our past interactions with them we learnt that unfortunately, disability and its related issues had not been included in the training imparted to them. This was the reason the Latika Roy Foundation Awareness Campaign proposed a one month internship programme for ASHA to sensitize them towards disability and to get hands on experience of dealing with children with special needs.

Early identification of a disability can be a big step in its effective treatment and an ASHA who is constantly in touch with the community can take this message across to the maximum number of people. The data that they gather can in turn be used as a base for better policies pertaining to health and well being in general and disability in particular.

During the course of the internship they will spend time at “Khushi”, our Satellite Early Intervention Centre and learn the basics in taking care of special children.

AUGUST: The Month that was....

Never known to miss out on anything fun all we need is a reason to celebrate! The month of august was full of fun filled activities across the foundation. We started the month with rakhi celebration at Latika Vihar. Days before the actual festival children were seen making rakhis during the art and craft class. Each sister made sure that Archana didi (the art teacher) helped in making rakhis that adhered to her beloved brother’s taste. Finally the day arrived, the puja thali was ready and each sister took the rakhi she had made for her brother and tied it on his wrist. In return the brother gave her sweets and a promise to love and protect her all his life.

Rakhi done and over with we got down to preparing for the next festivals in line, Independence Day and Janamashtami. At Khushi the children had been asked to dress up as Radha and Krishna.

The children looked absolutely adorable in their colourful costumes. After finishing with their regular activities they spend the rest of the day dancing to their favourite songs.

The day before Janamashtami the children at Latika Vihar along with the bamboo weaving and pottery teacher made a beautiful pandal and a swinging crib where they put idols of Lord Krishna.

While some of the children were busy preparing the Prasad for their friends and the guests the others could not wait to show the guests what they had prepared. The children put up two performances, a dance on ‘Woh Krishna Hai’ and a play on Rani Laxmibai for Independence Day.

On the whole it was a fun day and all the hard work paid of.

But our celebrations did not end here! We had a lot more to celebrate. On August 15 we started the day at Karuna Vihar to celebrate our freedom and hoist our national flag. The children at Karuna Vihar had prepared a small but meaningful play. The children did a play on the importance of trees and showed how destroying them would also take away the animals right to live in their own homes. After all the freedom and right to live is not just for human beings! The CVT trainees sang a patriotic song and danced their hearts out.
Wait there is more! The Early Intervention Centre had a new home, a home that we could call our own and it was time to celebrate this new found freedom. The evening started with endearing performances by the staff and children of Khushi. ‘Ensemble’ a Dehradun based rock and roll band played foot tapping numbers and forced us to take to the dance floor.

Oh no we are still not done we had barely caught on to a few winks of sleep that it was time to start gearing up for the next event, The JRD Tata Trust Lecture Series. The lecture this year was on Sexuality and the Intellectually Disabled, a topic which is important yet ignored.

India is a country where sex is a taboo subject even among the so called ‘normal’ people, so it is no surprise when people with disabilities are completely negated in such conversations. This lecture was aimed at several varied groups.

There was a group who held misconceptions like people with disabilities are asexual, many believe since they are not ‘normal’ they have no such feelings or needs. Then there was the group of parents of children with intellectual disabilities who had specific questions that needed to be answered and finally we had the group of NGO’s who wanted to know more.

To do this mammoth task of clearing misconceptions and answering questions we invited Dr Shekhar Seshadri a child psychiatrist from NIMHANS, Bangalore.

He was everything we hoped for and more. The main cause of concern that we had was the reluctance of people to talk about sexuality. Unless they talk we would never be able to help them understand or guide them on what to do next. It was this impossible task of making people talk that Dr Seshadri accomplished. To come and give a lecture may not be too hard a feat but to make people get up and ask personal questions without inhibitions is a feat that deserves applause.

The month drew to an end but it doesn’t stop here as Robert Frost aptly said, ‘but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep’. September here we come!

OUR NEW EIC

They say that when life closes one door it opens another and that is exactly what happened with us when almost two months ago the Early Intervention Centre had to shift base from St. Joseph’s Academy. We have had a long and beautiful relationship with the school and thank the administration for all the support and love that they have given us over the years. It was heartbreaking to leave what had become our home but it had to be done. We were now franticly looking for a place where our children could go play, grow and get therapy. This is when an old friend, Jyoti Sood came through for us. She had a home lying vacant in East Canal Road which she graciously gave to us. We would like to take this opportunity to thank her for her gesture of friendship. Without much ado we packed our bags and were ready to leave. As you can see the children too had a great time loading and unloading luggage!

The house is centrally located, easily accessible and beautiful. The white gate opens to a small lawn with a huge tree and a cream coloured building.

It had been lying vacant for a while so there was much work to do before opening it to the children. So the staff of the EIC got down to making the rooms barrier free and colourful enough for the children. It was hard work because children are the toughest critics to please! As you can see the hard work too was great fun with the staff painting and cleaning each other as much as the walls!
This is what our new EIC finally looked like post the creativity unleashed by the staff! Welcome to our new home at 55 B, E.C. Road, Near Dwarka Stores.

Our phone number has not changed (+91-35-6458540)

The Supreme Court Sees The Light

Most of us watched with concern, dismay and horror as a drama involving a young woman with a mental handicap played out in the national press this week. The woman - just 19 years old - is a ward of the state and lives in a Nari Niketan in Chandigarh. She was raped by two of the guards working in the institution and she became pregnant.

Thinking they were acting for her benefit, some NGOs in the area brought suit that she should have an abortion and the Chandigarh High Court ordered that it be done, saying she was unable to understand the nature of her situation and would not be able to take care of the child should she bring it to term.

The young woman, however, insisted that she did not want an abortion.

The case finally reached the Supreme Court where emotional and provocative arguments were made on both sides.

Yesterday, the court stayed the Chandigarh decision and ordered that the pregnancy be allowed to continue.

However you may feel about abortion (I am against it) this case brought up all sorts of disturbing and fundamental issues:

1. Does having a mental handicap mean that your right to have children is someone else's decision?
2. What makes a good parent? Is intellectual ability a requirement?
   
3. Who decides?
4. What if, as one of the judges asked, the baby was also handicapped?
   
5. Who should be held responsible for the fact that this woman was raped? The men who did it? The institution which allowed it to happen?

In our organization, a group of us gathered to discuss the case just an hour before the Supreme court decision was handed down. Many interesting points were made and we all felt troubled and challenged by the implications of the case.

One of the most moving statements came from a visiting friend, an educational psychologist, who spoke about a little boy she knew whose parents were both mentally handicapped. But, she said, he was dearly loved, happy and secure. His parents received community support to bring up their child and while he was not likely to be an academic over-achiever, she expected he would grow up to be a good citizen who would hold a job and make his contribution. Should his parents not have been allowed to have him? Should he not have been born at all?

Whose life it it, anyway?

What are your thoughts?

Latika Vihar – where children rule!

Excited voices, dancing feet and smiling faces is what will greet you when you enter the tiny white gate of Latika Vihar in Vasant Vihar. Latika Vihar is an after school activity centre for children, it is a haven in a world where children are forced to grow up, where parental pressure to excel in every field sometimes kills the joy of childhood. Latika Vihar is a place where fun still exists, it is the only place where children are allowed to grow at their own pace and participate in activities they want. There is no pressure to perform or compete with anyone; there is just their desire to nurture their talents and our commitment to fulfill that desire.
At Latika Vihar no one works for the children, we all work with them, from learning pottery to playing badminton, from learning chess to reading in the library, from dancing to bollywood tunes to enacting scenes from different plays, they do all this and more, without any pressure. The child is left to choose what he wants to learn and since there is no pressure to perform, he can leave his inhibitions aside and experiment with different talents.

A child who thought he could not dance because he was told he is not good joins the group because no one is judging him, who knows with time he may turn around to give us a performance worth remembering.

Latika Vihar teaches you a very valuable lesson of life, no one is better or worse each individual is as capable, special and talented as the other. It is a place where the social, economical, physical and mental differences do not matter, what matters here are the excited voices, dancing feet and smiling faces that greeted you at the gate.

gearing up

All of us at the training centre are now gearing up for the new ATT course.
Getting ready to welcome the new trainees .We are going to be really busy! The centre is looking lovely after the new coat of paint and all those posters. We are at our creative best, rearing to go..... so wish us luck.