Merry Christmas
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
3 jolly Santas and 2 beautiful fairies in an open lorry were blessing every body and saying “God Bless You My Child”. These were the words the Hyderabad was listening through out the day on 23rd Dec 2007. Satyam Foundation planned the celebration of Christmas with the help of volunteers from the Satyam Corporation, Sakshum, Husys and few other college students with some NGO’s working for the children.
The troop reached to its first destination, the Sidur. Sidur is a NGO which catered the needs of street children. There were 40 children who were either orphan or abandoned or were from Sex workers. The NGO provided them the basic education and social skills and help for their better adaptation into the society. The Sidur’s Children showed their skills and 2 very entertaining dances. The Santa and Angels distributed chocolates and Cakes to them. The Santas entertained the children by cracking jokes and saying “ Ho Ho Ho”.
The next 2 destinations were different and they were the correctional homes for juvenile delinquent. The children in these centers were brought from other states too. However, they were kept under four walled but basic facilities were being provided. Few children were learning dance where as few others were learning the skating. They were counseled there for improving their adaptive behavior and provided with all basic education. The staff also provided some vocational training to these children according to their capabilities as this helped them to earn their bread and butter after their release from the center. Children enjoyed Christmas cake and were delighted to see Santa and Fairies.
After a delicious lunch in Swagath we stepped ahead to other NGO SIRIA, mainly for girls orphans. The place was packed with love, care, and discipline. The building was small but the NGO work made it large as the space was being utilized perfectly for classes and their residence. The girls enjoyed the rides on Santa’s shoulder and carols singing.
The another NGO’s in the area of Secunderabad, worked with the help of ILO enforcement team for the street children. The NGO provided the children who are either abandoned or orphan with the basic knowledge and help them to integrate into Govt Schools for further studies. The children were allowed to stay in the NGO’s premises till they would be 18.
On the way to NGO’s the Santas, fairies and volunteers were distributing the chocolates and blessing the crowd. The crowd also enjoyed seeing Santa and Fairies and asked for blessings by themselves. It was a fun for common children to see Santa on the road.
All the volunteers were delighted to see the smiling faces of the children and dedicated work of the Satyam foundation and the NGO’s. The celebrations were beyond all religion and caste. The only relation that existed in between the children and us was of Humanity, the preachings of The Bible.
Special thanks for the Satyam Foundation and dedicated volunteers from Satyam, Sakshum, Husys and other kids.
Please check out the pics and funny videos at http://www.sakshum.in/Videos.html
Posted byNeeti at 10:27 PM 1 comments
Labels: celebrations, Experiences
Easy to Cope
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Disability not only affect the person who is inflicted rather it also disturbs others like parents and family members equally or more. As treatment is ongoing process so sometimes parents get frustrated. Thus getting professional counselling is one of the most important aspects because parents are pivotal in the management of their child. The main objectives of counselling is to properly explain the child's condition and help the parents to accept it, guide them regarding proper treatment, address their concerns about the child, try to alleviate the immense psychosocial stress that they face, remove the feelings of guilt and blame and help build positive attitudes. Both the parents, and sometimes the grandparents too need to be counselled together. It channelize the parents' thought process towards positive goals.
SUGGESTIONS FOR COPING
No matter, how much our country is progressive still in disability field we are back, poor awareness of the disability and its denial may aggravate the problem.As a family it becomes its duty to take care of their child no matter how the child is. So there are few tips that might help them to cope up better to the situation.
1. Educate yourself about your child conditions from various resources available. It not only helps you to know about the problem rather it also helps you to get the right diagnosis on right time. It also prevents you from misleading.
2. Accept the child as s/he is. Don’t just concentrate on what the child cannot do rather try to find what the child can do. This provides you more positive outlook.
3. Be patient. Discuss your concerns with your relatives, spouse, friends and professionals. This helps you in coping with your own fears and anxieties, also helps in developing good relations with others.
4. Spread awareness about the disability, what your child has. It helps in uplifting yourself.
5. Join a ‘self help group’ or ‘ support group’ which can give you the right direction by sharing their experience and guide you. If you could not get any group try to find a family or relatives with the help of professional you even can help each other.
6. Make time for yourself and your interests. This seems hard or near to impossible for most of the parents but remember that we can take care of others if we are happy. So indulge yourself occasionally and time to yourself.
7. Celebrate and enjoy your child’s every success no matter even if it is small one. This encourages the child.
8. Consider your child as normal as possible, give proper attention but don’t pamper him. Like normal child the child with special needs does learn, may be slower.
9. Be brave and remember no efforts go into vain.
10. Meet other parents who are having similar problem and share your efforts and concerns. Don’t hesitate.
11. Be advocate for your child.
12. Try to update your knowledge about the benefits and schemes provided by the Government.
Posted byNeeti at 12:28 AM 1 comments
Labels: disability, knowledge sharing
EFFECTS OF DISABILITY ON FAMILY
Disability is defined as the inability of a person to perform a task due to loss of a body part or muscle power. Disability can be of various degrees depending on the area and the extent of injury. Depending on the disability it affects the individual and its family. It affects more if the disability occurs in earlier stage of the life. If a child born with the disability, both the child as well as the family suffers equally or sometimes the family suffer more.
The time it is decided that the child is to born, the parents and family starts dreaming about the child’s future. So the time family comes to know about the disability, their dreams shatter down. This is the phase of shock and they deny accepting the situation. Slowly they start coming out of shock and one more, harrowing process of diagnosis, mis believes, visits to professionals, and search of right treatment make parents more depressing. Some parents lose their hope during this phase; some will get the right path whereas some will loss in between.
Some families suffering increase more when they don’t find a proper psychological as well as professional support. Families are left more wondering about the prognosis of their child disability and what future holds for them. Delayed or wrong diagnosis may even sometimes complicate the situation. Sometimes parents are blamed for disability or parents blame their karma/kismat or other religious belief.
Bringing and looking after a disabled child is not an easy job hence it affects the normal functioning of the family life.
Financial issues affect the disability and vice versa. It takes lots of money and time to get proper diagnosis and treatment by number of professionals. Moreover to take care a special need child one of the parents has to drop the job or alter the hours of employment to provide the care for the child. So a single parent income imposes greater financial strain on the family for providing the professional care and additional to equipments. Moreover the regular and longterm professional help and special school put additional burden on family financial status
Without proper information about the child’s condition the parents feel that they are lost or being thrown on other planet. Strained or limited finances, time, and sense of inferiority limit the parent’s social activities. Most of the time mother is the one who give up the job and stay with the child. She blames herself or is blamed by the family members. If husband or family members are not supportive she feels isolated, more depressed and exhausted. The caregiver has to be committed to child 24x7, leads to burnout. Parents become more anxious of their children future. What will happen to their child after them remains a haunting question to them. Giving answers to the relatives and neighbors are more frustrating. The child is more demanding for the parent’s time hence the couple cannot be able to spend their leisure time together. Moreover, as the child grows it puts more demands and that make parents more worried. The child’s prolonged illness or dependency exhaust the parents both mentally and physically. Most of the families loose their patience and sometimes may lead to separation and divorce. The pressure on the family members is immense and hence sometime leads to breakdown.
Lack of time, interest and depression make the parents more isolated and their socialization becomes poor. Sometimes the child throws temper tantrum and behavior problems, which can create an embarrassing situation. Poor acceptance of the child may aggravate the problem. Services are poor or hard to afford by every class of people. Poor and delayed diagnosis is very common which further delays the recovery and leads to complications.
Sometimes if the parents have the other siblings then the child may not get proper time, love and attention because of child with special need
demand more time and care. The child may feel isolated and insecure. This creates anger, anxiety and tension among the siblings. However most of the time situation is managed but sometime the sibling may not understand the reason and develops rivalry and feel jealous.
Hence disability not only affects the child with special needs, it affects the family, community and humanity itself.
Posted byNeeti at 11:27 PM 1 comments
Labels: knowledge sharing