By Pramila Balasundaram | Founder-Director
One of our services which is repeated every three months or so in different low socio economic communities neighboring our center in Dakshinpuri is a sensitization and awareness program. Recently, Samadhan conducted a health camp in Dakshin Puri. Our five-member professional team was present to help. Spade work had been done through posters in local Clinics, walls of markets etc. We were fortunate that three Drug Company representatives helped in the camp and distributed free medicine to the families who attended the camp.
We had a record turn up of a total of 86 families. Our focus was on the children in the 0 - 5 year age group and the 5 -10 year age group in keeping with our attempts to increase the attendance at our early intervention service provided in the center. However the exciting incident which marked this health camp was the presence of Nancy a two-year-old child with Down Syndrome who had joined our early intervention unit about a year ago and had benefitted greatly though regular and daily sessions with our speech therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy sessions since she also had symptoms of spasticity. Nancy can now speak, walks on her own and has shown remarkable improvement in her cognitive skills.
Nancy’s mother had been trying to battle well meaning suggestions from friends to just accept Nancy’s disability and get on with life. She has a non disabled boy about 5 years old. We were happy to see her but pleasantly surprised when she said she had come to tell other parents about her experience with Nancy and how she had improved through interventions given at Samadhan’s service center. We found that she was making a major impact on families who had come to the Health Camp. Nancy who was running in and out of the group, gathered there, was much admired. This experience has prompted us to invite parents and mothers in particular to come and attend our health camps and share their first hand experiences about the benefits of early identification and intervention.
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