GUWAHATI, May 11 - Sense International India, also known as Sense India, the first national-level NGO working with over 71,500 deafblind children and adults across 22 states of India, Shishu Sarothi and National Trust have called for identification, assessment and planning and execution of appropriate intervention for students with deafblindness.
Persons with deafblindness face discrimination and neglect, related to very basic rights such as right to food, shelter or even right to life. The scale of exclusion due to disabilities is dramatic. Approximately 89 per cent of all children with disabilities receive no formal education, whereas adults with disabilities do not have access to professional training and very seldom find a job in open employment. In addition to these, they also have to face negative attitudes of society.
Under such a backdrop, these non-governmental organisations have been advocating awareness about the rights of such persons so that they can be part of mainstream society with proper intervention.
It needs to be mentioned that Sense International India has also organised a State Network Meeting along with partner NGOs in Guwahati to create more awareness on the issue.
�It is important to promote quality of life for deafblind people and advocate their right to greater access to appropriate services, empower families to stand for what is due for their disabled members and develop skills and knowledge base of the teachers working with deafblind persons,� said Arman Ali, executive director of Shishu Sarothi.
Ali further said that there are various modes of services that can be adopted to provide intervention to children with deafblindness (early intervention, school, inclusive, centre based, home based etc.). �Identification and assessment play an important role in deciding the mode of service,� Ali pointed out.
It is worth mentioning that developing three national level support groups of teachers working with deafblind/multi sensory impaired (MSI) known as �Abhi-Prerna�, �Prayaas� the network of families of deafblind/MSI persons and �Udaan� for adult deafblind/MSI persons has been a major activity of Sense India since 2004. Today there are more than 920 families, 565 educators and 130 adult deafblind/MSI persons associated with each other through these three networks.
