My Placement - Patan Community Based Rehabilitation Centre

After writing so many blogs about my activities each weekend, it was about time that I write about what actually brought me here to Nepal - volunteering. Thanks to my support crew at the West Vancouver Little League, I was able to come to Nepal 2 months prior to my planned trip here in November to volunteer with a Canadian-based organization called Volunteers Abroad.

I have been placed at a community rehabilitation centre for children with physical and mental disabilites. Having very little grasp of the Nepali language, I have found that interacting with these kids, especially their teachers, challenging to say the least but so far very rewarding! Each morning their bus arrives at 10:30am and 15 or so kids unload down a very rocky road to the placement. Some kids need help either in their wheelchair or just a helping hand to walk, while others can mosey down the path and start the day's lessons. After all the kids are there, the group sings the Nepali national anthem, a few nursery rhymes then a simple prayer.  Let the day begin!

Right now I am working with the group's most disabled kids. There are 10 or so kids in our class and their challenges range from autism to cerebral palsey to severe musclular and skeletal deformations as well as very limited cognitive capacities. With the limited resources available to the centre, our class is very basic. Each morning we do role call, work on the ABC's and 1,2,3's then try to recite children's songs and clap our hands. When lunch comes around, I feed one child. Each day I try to work with a different one but I've taken a liking to one girl with CP because her smile lights up the room! Her name is Surina and she is non-verbal and loves to draw circles and follow connect the dot patterns. We've been working on her motor skills and response to verbal cues such as, "high five" "left hand / right hand" and "come here (from her chair)." Yesterday and today were successful days as we climbed two flights of stairs together - she can't get up stairs on her own and has a tough time with support.

I see myself (and the other volunteer from our house) trying to help out in a way that will be simple to follow and leave a legacy. We have come up with a few suggestions for the staff at the centre work on each day in the hopes that when we leave, they will be running their facility in a much more efficient manor. Here are our suggestions:
1. A daily agenda from when classes start to when classes finish. Currently the teachers just come into class unprepared and rip out a sheet of paper and do the same thing over and over with each student.
2. Progress reports with each student. Currently their monitoring system is done once a year and with very little professional input. Our hope for this is to teach each teacher the basics of keeping track of student's progress through weekly report cards and group reviews.
3. A volunteer handbook - this placement gets a lot of volunteers through its doors and for some reason they either leave or end up just playing with the kids because there's no system set up for when they arrive. We want to draft up a very simple first week program as well as have each studen't profile up-to-date so they have all pertinent information to do the best job possible.

I know that there are plenty of other things we could try to help out with however if we make goals that are too lofty then we're setting ourselves up for failure. My partner and I have 6 more weeks at this placement and have made great headway on improving Patan CBR's methods.

The placement has been a lot of fun so far, even with the mayhem we've gotten ourselves into! The kids are great, I'm learning so much about working with children with diabilities and the whole time getting to help out an organization that would benefit from my knowledge in the anatomy and physiology field.