Provide therapy to 50 disabled children in India

FREE HEALTH CAMP CONDUCTED FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

SAMADHAN conducts periodic surveys to identify children with intellectual disability, public awareness campaigns through health camps, puppetshows and streetplays.

On 12.09.2017, SAMADHAN conducted a health camp at SAMADHAN Centre in Dwarka, which catered to 35 children with intellectual disabilities, along with their parents from, in & around Dwarka, in the age group of 0-15 years.

Multidisciplinary professionals consisting of a Pediatrician, Speech Therapist, Occupational Therapist, Psychologist and Special educator provided assessment services, therapeutic intervention to the intellectually disabled children during this camp. Counselling services on obtaining disability certificate & Legal guardianship was also provided to all the parents who attended the camp. Being a registered organisation and a member of Local Level Committee, New Delhi District, of National Trust, statutory body of Government of India, SAMADHAN will assist parents to fill in online applications for Legal Guardianship and Nirmaya schemes of National Trust.

SAMADHAN collaborated with Edgeware Technologies Pvt. Ltd, a company working with documentation of medical records (for more info - https://demo.vista-edge.com).  which helped to streamline the documentation process by customizing a software VistA- Edge for this Health camp. The staff of Edgeware and some volunteers were involved in entering the data of the registration and assessment reports in the software.

Team SAMADHAN would like to appreciate the staff of Edgeware, volunteers and the professionals for giving their time and support to reach out to children with intellectual disabilities.

Expressive Art Therapy workshop was conducted for the children of Special Education Unit at SAMADHAN, Dakshinpuri Centre on 12^th July 2017 by Atreyu Samuel Balasundaram  along with Ms. Aparna Samuel Balasundaram. Atreyu is a science student of grade 12th and Volunteer at SAMADHAN. He is the grandson of Mrs. Pramila Balasundaram (Founder of SAMADHAN).

Atreyu with his interaction from early years with SAMADHAN, has developed a keen personal and professional interest in the Special Needs/Intellectual Disability space and a mission is to learn, grow and work in this field, from a neuroscience perspective. Ms. Aparna Samuel Balasundaram is a Psychotherapist and Chief Service Officer, Light house organisation, New Delhi.

Art therapy has been used as an effective therapeutic tool with special need children. Expressing through art, involves different motor, somatosensory, visual, emotional, and cognitive aspects of information processing with the activation of the corresponding neurophysiological processes and brain structures.[Lusebrink,,2004]. Using art allows for an alternate means of communication and self-expression and also provides us with another avenue into the inner world, emotions, thought patterns and workings of a special needs person that might be inhibited in the ways they can assimilate, share and communicate.

The session was on ART and my FEELINGS. It focussed on - “what makes me angry and what makes me happy”.  The resource persons used visual aids (on the computer) to show the children faces that depicted anger and happiness. Then asked them about what made them feel angry/happy. With the help of the teachers, the resource persons attempted to communicate with the children. With the use of visual aids and demonstrating [role modelling] of facial expression, the children drew on the paper using colours of their choice. It has been observed that three of the children could comprehend and express through art in the workshop. The children had great fun with colours and enjoyed the session.