Educational day centre transforms lives of Assam's disabled children

Jorhat (Assam), Oct 22(ANI): An educational day centre for spastic children in Assam's Jorhat city is helping and supporting disabled children through various rehabilitation programmes.

"Prerona Sishu Bikash Kendra Spastic Society", one of the prime institutions in the North East with a mission to empower kids with disability, has also come as a blessing to the parents of these children.

With a motto, "To meet the challenge of life", it provides the disabled children with all round educational facilities, and also teaches them to lead a positive life in the society through various therapies.

"We started as a center for special education, but slowly we moved to different projects according to our need. We faced some problems, as some parents can't come everyday due to social constraints. So, we initiated the community base rehabilitation program and our field work is to visit their home weekly or twice a week to provide service to children with disability," said Sayera Rehman, founder and principle of the centre.

Deepak Borah, a parent, said that the centre has been of great help to parents like him, and the institution has helped their children to have a positive notion about the society.

"My son comes to Prerona and it's been 7 months. During his initial admission he refused to attend it, but later he willingly agreed to join. He has made small progress after coming to Prerona," Borah said.

The institute was established in 1992, and since its inception it has been catering to the different needs of the spastic children of the state.

Till date more than 200 children have benefited directly and over 5000 indirectly through various awareness programmes like seminars and workshops.

Presently, there are 80 students enrolled for the current academic year, who also have hostel facilities available for them.

The institution also offers non-formal training to parents and social workers to enable them to identify such children and help enroll them in the institution. By Vaschipem Kamodang (ANI)