Samvedna Jaunpur Project of LCH, Mussoorie

SAMVEDNA OVERVIEW

The Emmanuel Hospital Association includes 20 hospitals and 44 community Health and development projects in India. One of the hospitals which are Landour Community Hospital, Mussoorie is also one of the hospitals under EHA. Seven of these are disability specific development programs and one of these programs is called ‘Samvedna’, which translates from Hindi as ‘empathy’ in English. Samvedna is located the Himalayas Jaunpur block of Tehri Garhwal district of Uttarakhand. The overarching goal of Samvedna is to meet the practical, educational and social needs of people with disabilities and their families and to facilitate their access to mainstream services, ensuring they are included in the community. The community based rehabilitation project covers 4 main areas; education, advocacy, livelihood and empowerment.

Samvedna was established in 2010 by a broad coalition of health focused NGOs, after it was identified that although there were many health and education programs established for the able-bodied population, those with disabilities were severely disadvantaged in their ability to access even the most basic health and education services.

Samvedna Disability Project, Thatyur, Uttarakhand

The Samvedna program has benefitted from its central involvement in the Uttarakhand Cluster: a network of 47 NGOs who have chosen to focus on disability as a key health issue. As part of the Cluster, Samvedna has facilitated the development of expertise and resources to improve disability services in the region.

In December 2012 Samvedna opened its first learning centre where children with a disability have been able to receive special education, physical therapy, life skills education, prevocational and daily living training. For those children who are unable to be mainstreamed into the regular education system, this facility provides a positive learning environment in which they can gain important literacy skills to support them to thrive. This is the model that Samvedna seeks to scale up over coming years