Our last post before we all pack up for Christmas!
Here Motivation’s Jen Howitt Browning describes her recent trip to southern India, where we’re hoping to set up a much-needed new peer training programme (for the low-down on our peer training, read this earlier post).
We were going to make this a two-parter as it’s quite long, but it flows better as a single post – hope you agree.
Jen and Sangita
Day one
After what feels like the world’s longest flight, I’ve arrived in Chennai, or Madras as it used to be called. This is my first stopover on my way to Ayikudi, in Tamil Nadu, where I’m going to meet with an organisation called Amar Seva Sangam. Motivation has been working with them to distribute wheelchairs through a service they have set up, but now we’re in discussions with them about starting a peer training programme.
Outside the airport, I’m greeted by Sangita from Motivation’s India office. She looks amazingly well rested considering she has travelled from Bangalore and has been waiting outside in the heat for me for almost two hours. We pile into a taxi and head to our hotel in Chennai to get a whopping four hours’ sleep before another long journey south.
Day two
After a quick breakfast of Chennai specialities (Sangita patiently answering all my ‘what is that?’ and ‘what’s in that?’ questions), we head out into the crazy, colourful morning rush hour to make our way to the airport.
As we make our way to security to go through to the gate, the security guard refuses to let me pass. ‘You can’t come through in your wheelchair,’ she says. ‘It’s not allowed.’
After much arguing with the staff at the airport and the airline, we finally agree that if I go back to the check in desk and put my wheelchair through the giant x-ray machine and then put a sticker on it which says ‘checked’, then I can go through security in my own wheelchair.
Despite our best efforts to explain why this is so important, I get the impression that everyone thinks Sangita and I are insane to have made such a fuss when they have their own airport wheelchairs there and a nice gentleman who is paid to push people in wheelchairs to their gate.
A quick flight later and we’re in Tuticorin. Now only three hours left to go!
When we finally arrive at Amar Seva Sangam, it’s dark outside but I can already tell that this place is special. After coming through a large set of gates, we drive down wide lanes and take several turns to finally get to our guesthouse at the back of their compound.
The spinal injuries centre at Amar Seva Sangam
Day three
After a much needed lie-in, Sangita and I head down to the ‘Barrier Free Dining Hall’ as it says on the front of the building and I get my first proper Indian breakfast, eaten out of metal trays with my hand. Sangita explains to me that they have a policy that everyone, regardless of disability, must wash their trays up themselves and put them away.
I learn that Amar Seva Sangam was set up in 1981 after a man named Mr Ramakrishnan had an accident on his way to an interview for his naval training and realised how little support there was for disabled people. It has now grown into an enormous centre, with a vocational training centre, special education school, hostel for disabled people, spinal injuries centre, physiotherapy centre and an orthotics workshop.
We take a tour of the facilities and meet the staff who are all so keen to show me what they do. At the special education school for children with intellectual disabilities, I’m invited by the teacher (who has cerebral palsy herself) to ask one of the pupils in the vocational class what the price is for an item in a special ‘shop’ cupboard that they have.
‘How much is the toothpaste?’ I ask.
After staring at it intently for a few seconds, he looks back at me with a smile and says, ‘10 rupees madam. Would you like to buy it?’
I politely decline (I already have toothpaste after all), but I leave feeling a bit guilty. Perhaps I should have given him 20 rupees to help him learn to make change?
Jen meets with patients at the spinal injuries centre to plan the new training programme
Day four
Sangita and I head over to the spinal injuries centre to meet with the patients and staff.
We learn that they have many of the same problems in India that we see all over the world: high rates of dangerous pressure sores, little training in how to prevent them, poor mobility skills which makes it difficult to get around on the very rough, inaccessible terrain. Judging by the number of questions I’m asked about my own management routine, bowel and bladder management is clearly also a major concern.
After I show them a video of the wheelchair skills training that Motivation did in the Solomon Islands in June, they tell us that this is definitely needed here in Tamil Nadu. We spend the next hour planning out the details and come up with a project plan for how to get started.
That afternoon we visit several people with spinal cord injuries (SCI) in their homes so that we can better understand the challenges that people face.
During our last visit of the day, we meet an 18 year old boy who fell from a tree eight months ago and is waiting to be admitted to the spinal injuries centre. He and his mother have had no information or training about SCI and as a result he has developed pressure sores on both hips.
I spend some time teaching them both about pressure sores and how to prevent them, as I can’t bear the thought of them waiting to learn about this until we raise the funds to get the project started. That could take more than six months, and by then this boy might have developed an infection and died. It’s suddenly very clear how urgent the need is for a peer training programme.
