Rehabilitation for 50 Children with Disabilities

We are very much grateful for your continuous donation to the needy children with disabilities of Nepal. With your support, we are successful in providing necessary services to the children. To date, you gave a total of $32,447. GREAT SUPPORT. We hope for the continuation of your support in the near future also. This time, we have a short description of the COVID case with one of our children in the center.

For children with disabilities, Patan CBR has become more beloved than school, hospital, court, mother-in-law's house. In Patan CBR, 43 children with various disabilities are there. They are involved in various activities depending on their disability and working capacity.

Meanwhile, Nepal could remain hurt by COVID-19 since 2019 and all the students were forced to stay at home. We distributed relief to 45 families who had to earn a living by searching for kind donors time and again till April 2021. We helped the children who need to take medicine for epilepsy by giving them medicine at home even in difficult situations.

The school was closed from April 2020 to Jan 2021. In some cases, the children were excluded from the video chat, but due to the serious nature of the children's condition, we could not run an online class. While discussing with the parents to bring the school back into operation in February 2021, most of the parents advised not to open the school and not to send their children. Whereas some parents wanted to send their children to school, the school opened and 10 children started coming.

Meanwhile, the second wave of COVID-19 hit Nepal. COVID-19 found out to one child from the vocational unit, is a good student with an intellectual disability. She has Down's syndrome. She lives with her parents. Her father runs a shop. One day she told her mother that she had eaten ice cream and had a sore throat. Then, she was rushed to the hospital for treatment of sore throat. She returned home after taking medicine, hot water and coming back after a week. However, again she was rushed to hospital for treatment. During the treatment, father and daughter appeared COVID-19. Her mother was very upset and both father and daughter sent to Patan Institute of Health Sciences for intensive treatment on the advice of the Hospital.

Her mother was in a very difficult situation. It was very difficult to arrange medicine, financial matters, and food. According to the advice of the doctors, the treatment was started in the intensive care unit, but the situation became very serious. At last, they started giving 6 bottles of medicine worth Rs 3,000 per bottle as a last effort. It is easier to place the pipe in the ventilator by the throat than by the mouth so doctors prepared for the operation. They tried a lot but could not change the position of the pipe because the children with Down's syndrome have a naturally short neck.

After getting into this situation, her mother informed Patan CBR. Teachers went to the intensive care unit of the hospital. Her mother was helpless and wondered if her daughter would have heard the teachers' voice. There was no question about what is going on in the intensive care unit. Teachers listened to the heart-touching words of the mother and returned.

We reached the hospital again two days later. Her condition was still critical. The treatment was complicated due to pneumonia, lung infection, and urinary infection. The doctors had given up and said that it was the last phase. Finally, she was taken out of the ventilator. Again her health improved a little bit again. She returned home after 34 days of ventilator treatment, but her speech is still not clear. She is still on medication.

We are continuously in touch with the family and providing necessary help to the family. Her mother expressed thanks for the help provided and the phone calls from the high-level CBR authority, which encouraged her and got strength during the difficult time. We provide great thanks to all the donors without support from whom we would not have been able to provide these support to the necessary children with disabilities of Nepal.

I would like to extend a great thank you to all the donors for your continuous support to us even in the time of the pandemic. To date, you gave us $30,517.00 from 158 donors from around the world. This gave us great power to work with these types of needy Children from society. I hope for your continuous support in the future also. Great thank you once again.

Patan CBR is struggling in this COVID pandemic to sustain ourselves and our organization. When we think about the conditions of families who can barely afford the lifestyles and basic needs required for daily livings, breaks our heart to realize how hard it must have been for them to manage this pandemic situation. It struck harder on the parents and families of Children with Disabilities. Though they were able to manage their needs for initial, a few months later it became harder for them to face the challenges due to unemployment, less paid jobs, and more necessary for good nutrition for the family. It is a sorrowful situation when we put ourselves in those parents' shoes that were unable to manage such a basic necessity of life for their children and family, those stresses and mental pain is hard to realize for us. It is their story and the only thing we could do is to help them, being humans at least we can heal the small wounds of theirs although we cannot fulfill their all required aspects of life. Still, we are not able to start our school due to the pandemic

This time, we conducted the program to distribute materials for personal hygiene. Altogether, 19 families of CwDs were benefited by this program. Materials like sanitary pads, sanitizers, diapers soap, and face masks to protect the COVID transmission were distributed to the families. Also, we distributed food relief to the 16 families. Food materials like rice, pulses, salt and edible oil were distributed. Food relief to 25 families was also provided to the families for the second time. This food relief consists of rice, pulses, salt, edible oils, gram, peas, wheat flour, face masks and sanitizers. For the third time, we continued our food relief distribution, 35 families were benefited this time. Lastly, we helped 5 more families in distributing food relief and materials like bread, doughnut, juice, face masks, soap, pulses, and gram. This greatly helped those families of CwDs whose parents lost their job. We greatly thank the GlobalGiving donors due to whom we are able to run our program and we could link with some local donors for this support program.

One parent of Children with Intellectual Disability expressed "it is a great help for us as we do not have enough income even if we are running a vegetable shop. I hope Patan CBR School will start soon so that my daughter can go to the school regularly"

Links:

• Patan CBR website
• Patan CBR facebook
• Patan CBR facebook