Disability project The Disability Project aims at providing appropriate care and adequate advice to people suffering from various handicaps – physical, mental and psychological. No matter how mild the disability, it can lead to behavioural, psychological and social problems especially if the person has to develop in a competitive and hostile environment like the slums and streets of Calcutta. The programme focuses mainly on children with learning difficulties or who are blind or deaf because they are young enough to learn to handle and live with their handicap and to go on to live independent lives as adults. Programme structure For the moment there is only one permanent employee. Biswajit is a professional social worker from India. From time to time he is assisted by a voluntary worker when someone fitting the profile turns up. Every day Biswajit visits one of the Calcutta Rescue clinics and listens to the questions and concerns of the patients. Most are linked to the practical problems of daily life. When he is assigned new patients, Biswajit has a meeting with them to establish a file and what their needs are. In some cases, a home or school visit is protocol. Biwajit works closely with various doctors, physiotherapists and ergo therapists from Calcutta Rescue to devise a therapeutic plan adapted to the patient. He offers advice to the patient and their families and explains how to go about maybe getting state support. These steps are often long and complicated especially for those who cannot read and write. Finding specialist schools or apprenticeships for children with a handicap is difficult but also very important if we are to give them any hope of a decent future. Every other week or so the rehabilitation team takes groups of new patients to visit a governmental institution where they may be offered a variety of different therapies like for instance specialist learning, speech therapy, blind learning, ergo therapy etc. They go in hope of finding places for these young handicapped people but the State-offered programmes are massively over-subscribed and not tailored to suit individual needs. This is why Calcutta Rescue sponsors 18 pupils with learning difficulties to learn in a specially adapted private school suited to their needs. 10 other children are hoping for sponsorship and donations to be able to attend the school.

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