USAID funds disability support programme

COLOMBO: The Southern Centre for the disabled (SCD became a partner organisation of the Disability Support Programme a five-year, $4.4 million initiative to improve services for the disabled in Sri Lanka funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

SCD is one of six grassroots organizations facilities across the country that received technical assistance and training from the Motivation Charitable Trust, a U.K. - based organization and USAID prime implementing partner. Motivation is dedicated to meeting the needs of disabled people all over the world.

The programme was made possible by the Leahy War Victims Fund, established by the U.S. Congress in 1989 to assist people who have suffered at the hands of armed conflict. "The change in some of our partner organizations has been like day and night," said Programme Director Thomas Keolker.

"These were all just little grassroots organizations that have been built up to the point where they can maintain international standards of service."

Sixteen-year-old Sandun Ranga knows all too well that disability is often a consequence of tragedy. A student about to sit for his O-level examinations last year, Sandun commuted to and from school by rail. One day, horseplay with friends resulted in his falling under the wheels of the train crushing both his legs.

Concerned about the boy's psychological as well as physical needs, the local Southern Center for the Disabled (SCD) dispatched staff to visit the hospital as Sandun recovered from amputation surgery, and found him understandably traumatised about how his life would be.

Counsellors explained that modern prosthetic limbs would allow him to walk again; SCD directors even convinced his Principal to approve modifications to the school to accommodate his wheelchair during his convalescence.

"After my accident, I was very unsure about my future," Sandun said recently, standing again assisted only by crutches, "People came to the hospital and explained to me how I still have a life to look forward to.

I can have a happy future." Success in cases such as Sandun's illustrates the effectiveness of the holistic approach to disability services: seeing a patient through recovery, fitting of prosthetics using the latest technology, and rehabilitation therapy that permits patients to resume productive lives. All elements are key to successful services for the disabled. The SCD didn't always operate at this level, however.

Back in 2002, it consisted of one manager and two technicians sitting on the floor of a two-room shack, pounding sheets of aluminum on anvils into crude prosthetic limbs. It was a far cry from the fully equipped facility of today that is staffed with a complement of specialists trained in fabricating state-of-the-art, customised mobility devices.

Today, SCD provides clients with a full range of services including counselling, rehabilitative therapy and even career guidance capable of providing life-restoring services to thousands of patients like Sandun.

In Sri Lanka, the protracted conflict, dangerous roads, and poverty all contribute to a high rate of disability - estimates indicate as many as one in ten. Health services struggled to keep up with the latest advances in mobility products and services such as prosthetic and orthotic devices. Local disability organizations were limited to low-tech, low-cost products; a lack of physical and occupational therapists was also a major constraint to meeting needs of this vulnerable population.

Over the past five years, USAID's programme has attempted to fill this gap. The programme has assisted nearly 10,000 people, and imbued its six partner organizations with not only an understanding of the latest in technology, but also an approach that helps disabled people with the emotional, as well as practical, complexities of living with their conditions.

Additional partners include the Jaipur Center for Disability Rehabilitation in Jaffna, the Center for the Handicapped in Kandy, Navajeevana in Tangalle, Rehab Lanka in Colombo, and the Spinal injuries Association in Ragama.

All have risen to international standards during the life of the programme, and will carry on long after it closes. Motivation likewise continues to implement projects on behalf of disabled Sri Lankans.