By Althea DSylva | Manager - Communications & Resource Mobilization
Shantha is an 11 year old little girl with mild intellectual disability. She also lives with hydrocephalus – a condition in which there is an accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in her brain causing increased pressure inside her skull. Unable to care for her on account of poverty, her parents had surrendered her to the Government Cradle Baby Center in Dharmapuri District, Tamil Nadu State, when she was a little child. She came to our home when she was 4 years old.
Sustained special education and physiotherapy brought Shantha up to speed over the years, but more especially in the past year where her progress has been simply phenomenal! The role of the speech therapist was very critical in helping her express herself coherently. Around 6 months ago, Shantha passed a psychological evaluation that found her fit for mainstream education and she was enrolled in the 3rd grade at a Government school under the ‘inclusive learning’ program. Apparently, Shantha has a lot of hidden potential which needed some tapping into! In the past year she took up drawing, making small pieces of jewelry and painting colorful clay lamps.
As if this wasn't achievement enough, Shantha began to excel at classical Indian Bharatanatyam dance (which can be quite challenging for ‘normal’ children too!). We had introduced dance classes at the home less than a year ago and at first it didn’t appear that she would stick with it because of hyperactivity and body imbalance issues. But Shantha took us by surprise! Not only has she overcome her challenges but she is able to remember long and complex dance sequences and lyrics, and is well on her way to becoming a wonderful classical dancer who has made 6 public appearances already!
This is very exciting for us! A child written off by society but with a fighting chance to make it big one day! Thanks to her special educators, speech and physiotherapists, she is reaching her fullest potential today!
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