Svayam Foundation sponsors Accessible Vans to Mobility India

‘Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities’ has been talked about quite a lot. Persons with disabilities are encouraged to participate in all the spheres of life, access education, earn a livelihood and lead a better quality of life. But this will be far attainable without eliminating the accessibility issues which are visibly dominant in the inaccessible public spaces, schools, colleges, workplaces as well as public transport. 

With the aging population, increase in life expectancy people with disabilities and those relying on various assistive devices make a growing population. For this group, transport holds much significance which should ensure accessibility too. Mostly it is observed that due to inaccessible transport and environment, people with disabilities prefer to stay indoors instead of being out and about in the community. Mobility constraints are a major obstacle to disability-inclusive development, as they exacerbate the economic, social, and personal isolation of persons with disabilities, and tend to push them further into poverty.

MI has been working towards a barrier free environment for people with disabilities through the unique initiative of ‘Accessible Mobile Van’ since 2000. It provides a safe and accessible commute for wheelchair users, elderly and especially women. To enhance the reach of the accessible transport services in, MI has received 3 accessible vehicles contributed by Ms Sminu Jindal, MD, Jindal SAW Limited. The vehicles will be operated from MI offices in Bangalore and Guwahati. Extending thanks to Ms Sminu, Ms Albina Shankar, Director, MI mentioned “thanks for recognising the importance of accessibility. The vehicles will be benefitting wheelchair users, elderly and others who are temporarily on a wheelchair. 

Family Fun Festival 

MI’s one of the uniqueness from the inception has been always striving to remain connected with our service users, their parents and the community at large through our activities. Various programmes are conducted to achieve the same and one of our new activities for this year was to create awareness on importance of recreation for the people with disability and their family members through our Family fun Festival.

Being involved in sport and recreational activities not only helps your physical health, but it can also facilitate the creation of friendships with people that you may otherwise not have met and the development of leadership and collaboration skills. Sports and recreation holds equal significance for people with disabilities as well as their care providers. 

60 members involving parents, caregivers and grandparents of children with disabling conditions actively participated in the programme and gained motivational information from successful parents of children with different disability, who have crossed all the hurdles to overcome in bringing up their children. Play therapy was organized for the children and their parents.

 Role of mother in one’s life is inevitable. Mothers and grandmothers were honoured for taking the responsibility in parenting their children, ignoring their disability rather focusing on their special abilities. 

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Wheelchair Orientation Program organised by Mobility India (MI) in collaboration with Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS)

Since the inception MI has been involved in provision of assistive devices, therapeutic interventions aimed at improving the health & well-being of persons with disabilities. Since 2002 MI has been conducting a wide range of long and short term courses aimed at professional development of rehabilitation personnel.

MI in collaboration with RGUHS has organised a one day orientation program on wheelchair on 9^th June, 2017. The workshop aimed at creating awareness on WHO Guidelines on the provision of manual wheelchairs in less resourced settings among the faculties, sensitising the faculties on the need of wheelchair provision and their roles and responsibilities as a trainer. It also aimed at grooming the faculties to enhance the wheelchair content in the existing Physiotherapy curriculum of RGUHS.

The program was presided by Ms Albina Shankar, Director, MI, Ms Romola Joseph, Secretary, Governing Body Member, MI and Prof Sai Kumar N, Board of Studies Chairman, RGUHS. The program was attended by 37 faculties from 18 Physiotherapy colleges of Bangalore affiliated under RGUHS and 22 Post Graduate students in Physiotherapy.

Prof Sai Kumar is an expert Physiotherapist and Policy Maker with 15 plus years of experience and currently working as Researcher & Principal of Sanjay Gandhi Institute of Trauma and Orthopaedics (Physiotherapy). Addressing the participants Prof Sai Kumar mentioned “Wheelchair is an integral part, but we need to understand the depth of the technicalities. I wish all the participants to have an informative and enriched knowledge session”.

The participants gained knowledge on need and present scenario of wheelchair service provision, introduction to WHO guidelines, steps in wheelchair service provision as well as role of Physiotherapists and Rehabilitation Personnel in the domain of wheelchair service provision.

Mr Kennit, is a service user of MI since 2003. Due to Spinal Cord Injury he experienced reduced mobility in both of his lower limbs. Since then he is under continuous therapeutic intervention at MI. He shared his experience as “It took a practice of 3 months for me to be equipped to use elbow crutches in 2004 which I used for almost 10 years. Every time I used to fall, I acquired the confidence that I can do things on my own and used to get up. After fractures in both of my ankles I was unable to use the elbow crutches and had to rely on a wheelchair which I received in the year 2015 while attending the WSTP-Basic workshop at MI. The appropriate wheelchair and of course the dedicated efforts of each Physiotherapists who were involved with me has enabled me to do things on my own, improved my personal mobility and make me what I am today. I would request all the participant Physiotherapists to share your knowledge with your peers, clients and others to spread the awareness how a wheelchair can bring transformational changes”. Ms Jaya, Dr Rajlakshmi and Lekhana also shared their experience as how the appropriate wheelchairs has helped them in being independent, leading a dignified and satisfying life.

Sharing the take home message of the workshop, Mr M K Shridhar, an Academician who is a wheelchair user mentioned “The wheelchair has become part and parcel of many lives. What all Physiotherapists can play a role in enhancing the personal mobility of a person with disability, I have experienced at MI. There is a huge base of information available regarding appropriate wheelchair service provision. Our role as trainers is to transfer that knowledge to the students to sensitise them”.  

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Graduation Day Celebration: Empowering the Students to make the Impossible Possible 

Graduation is a time of celebrating the crucial and major milestone in a student’s life. It is vital that we honour more than just the student and more than just education at a graduation ceremony; we need to celebrate the special journey that each graduate is making of growing up.  A journey destined to each finding out who they are, what they are naturally good at doing, how they can go into the world and support themselves, and most of all, how their knowledge and skills can be implemented for the betterment of the community and society at large.

It was an eventful evening at MI on 16^th June with the graduates of CAT II Diploma in Prosthetics & Orthotics and Single Discipline Lower Limb Prosthetics & Orthotics dressed in the graduation costumes. The wide smiles were blended with the touch of emotions of completing a phase of study and venturing into the implementation platform. This graduation day was quite special with some of the former students of MI upgrading their knowledge, skill set through a up gradation training spanned four and half months .

Mr Krishna Raj Bhatt, an alumni student of MI from the course Lower Limb Prosthetics technologist of 2007 batch, scored highest in the International Society of Prosthetics & Orthotics (ISPO) Practical exam. He is currently engaged in National Social Welfare Association at Nepal. Ms Ayush from Yemen and Mr Jignesh from Ahmedabad, Gujarat acquired the second and third position in the practical exam. In the overall score, Mr Jignesh acquired the top position followed by Ms Rinku and Mr Krishna Raj Bhatt.  

Ms Rinku is from the first batch of training at MI in 2002. She mentioned “this four and half months duration of training was a great time to upgrade my knowledge and skills. It gives me confidence to do a better service delivery at my workplace in Howrah District, West Bengal.

Ms Ayush expressed “this is the best moment for me. I would like to specially thank my mother because of whom I am here in India to get training and thanks to Mobility India trainers too”. 

Play Therapy

So often in modern life we never seem to have enough time to spend with our children – just playing, just being there for them. Play therapy refers to a method of psychotherapy with children in which a therapist uses a child’s fantasies and the symbolic meanings of his or her play as a medium for understanding and communication.

The initiative of MI aims at incorporating the child’s physical abilities, cognitive functioning levels and emotional needs in a safe, supportive environment. It also allows children to not only learn how to interact with others and develop relationships; it also provides physical strategies children can use to perform.

Play therapy helps to decrease behavioural and emotional difficulties that interfere significantly with a child’s normal functioning. Other goals include improved verbal expression, ability for self-observation, improved impulse control, more adaptive ways of coping with anxiety and frustration, and improved capacity to trust and to relate to others. In this type of treatment, the therapist uses an understanding of cognitive development and of the different stages of emotional development as well as the conflicts common to these stages. Play has been shown to optimize learning, enhance relationships, and improve health and well-being.

For the period of April-June, 2017 3 play therapy sessions has been conducted and well-enough response has been obtained from the participants. 

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