Help Educate 500 Deafblind Children in India

Harsan (Chinna), a five-year-old boy from Andhra Pradesh, belongs to an economically backward family. His father is a daily wage worker, and his mother is a housewife. Despite their financial struggles, Harsan finds solace in watching TV and listening to songs at high volume. In 2019, a special educator identified him and conducted functional and clinical assessments. Following this, he was enrolled in our Sparsh programme in Andhra Pradesh.

It was then discovered that Harsan has congenital deafblindness with low vision and partial hearing loss. Our project team provides him with home-based services due to the distance of his home from the center. We hope he will be able to overcome these challenges and thrive. It's moments like these that remind us how important it is to provide support to economically backward families who may not have access to the resources they need to give their children a fair shot at life.

Now, as we look back on where Harsan started before joining our programme, our heart overflows with gratitude and admiration for the progress he has made. It's hard to believe that this smiling, confident young child was once so moody and uncooperative with people he didn't know. He depended on his mother for all his Activities of Daily Living (ADL) and had no means of communication due to his lack of speech. It was a challenging start for Harsan. Our dedicated team worked tirelessly to help him overcome these obstacles and achieve his potential. Today, he is enrolled in school and interacts with people with ease. Seeing him flourish makes all our efforts worth it.

The power of intervention by a dedicated team cannot be overstated. When it comes to aiding in the areas of socialization, ADL training, speech therapy, finger spelling, and sign language training, this team has proven to be an invaluable asset to those in need. For individuals struggling with socialization, this team offers guidance and support to help them build meaningful connections with others. For those who require ADL training, they provide personalized instruction and encouragement, helping people regain their independence and confidence. Their expertise in speech therapy has helped countless individuals overcome communication barriers, while their finger spelling and sign language training has opened new worlds of understanding for deafblind individuals.

Post intervention, he has become much more cooperative and enjoys spending time with people. It's heart-warming to see him talking in 1–2-word sentences like "mom", "dad", "food" and "spoon". His expressive communication has improved tremendously. He is now mostly independent in his ADL and can even do things like brushing, grooming, and toileting by himself. He has also started doing Telugu Sign Language and finger spelling in English from "A" to "I". His special educator is teaching him small words in Telugu sign language as well. With all these improvements, it's no wonder he was enrolled in Bavitha Centre-a Sarva Siksha Initiative for Elementary School Education for people with disabilities. We are excited to see how much more he will learn and grow with this opportunity. Helping Harsan communicate and become independent has been one of the most rewarding experiences of our lives.

Harsan’s mother says, “Chinna couldn’t do any activity at home but now he is doing his ADLs on his own and is also showing interest in other household chores. I’m happy with his progress”.

The support received from donors through GlobalGiving has helped Sense India to provide the required resources and training to so many children with deafblindness and multiple disabilities like Harsan to enable them to access education and bringing them closer to their dreams.

We thank GlobalGiving providing such a platform to fulfil the mission of the Non-Profit Organisations like Sense India.

• The_Journey_of_Endurance_and_Success.pdf (PDF)