By Our Correspondent
ANGUL/BARBIL/BHUBANESWAR: The Jindal Steel and Power Limited’s CSR arms, JSPL Foundation, which runs Asha The Hope, the rehabilitation Centre for the Divyangs in Odisha’s coal bearing Angul district, has brought millions of dreams for Divyangs in mineral and coal rich Odisha during COVID-19. Thanks to the people friendly leadership of JSPL Chairman Naveen Jindal and his Philanthropist wife and eminent Kucchipudi Dancer, Shallu Jindal, who heads of the JSPL Foundation. More than 4800 children with special needs have been benefited by Asha The Hope Centres set up by JSPL Foundation in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha.
“Asha the Hope is one of our Key initiatives in JSPL Foundation to ensure inclusive education to create an Inclusive Society. I am happy that during this COVID pandemic, when the Children with special needs are not able to reach the Rehabilitation Centres, the Foundation has been reaching their door steps catering need based consultation & special services to them,” said Shallu Jindal, Chairperson of JSPL Foundation.
“Rehabilitation of persons with disabilities and children with special needs is a continuous process and any kind of discontinuity may result in degradation of the acquired knowledge and skill. Therefore the centre assisted the parents to continue the service through demonstration during online sessions and home visits,” said Prashant Hota, President and Group Head (CSR & Sustainability) of JSPL.
“Asha the Hope” was inaugurated in Dec, 2019 and presently 55 children with special needs from 12 periphery villages of the Jindal Steel and Power Ltd. (JSPL) plant are getting benefit from this Rehabilitation centre. Asha The Hope, reached out to the needy children and their parents though mobile telephone and home visits. The team of therapists of the Centre guided the parents to practice home based therapy guided by live and or recorded video sessions. The therapists also visited home of some of the children to guide their parents to practice ‘Home Exercise protocol’, therapeutic skills, pre-vocational learning activities and educational activities. The therapists maintained social distancing norms as well as proper sanitation and use of masks during the visits.
The Centre has conducted more than 1200 online sessions through video calls and made various short videos to educate the parents to continue the therapy of their children during the lockdown period. They also made about 500 visits to homes of various children to guide parents and monitor improvement of children.
After getting such kind of support extended by the centre, Kalyani Nath, the mother of Roshan Nath, a 4.6 years old child undergoing Occupational Therapy and Physiotherapy treatment said, “After enrolling my child in Asha the Hope, I have found several improvement of my son and the way the therapists treats us is really remarkable. Because of lock down I was apprehensive about the continuity of the therapy of my child. But thanks to the therapists of Asha the Hope, the therapy could be continued. I am thankful to JSPL and JSPL Foundation for this”.
Not only that JSPL Foundation also distributed Assistive devices/Callipers for Divyangs suffering from Ankle Foot Orthosis and also provided face-masks for the parents and kids.The home based modules provided by Asha the Hope includes Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy to children with Locomotor disabilities and global developmental delay, Speech therapy and Sign Language training to children with Hearing Impairment and Speech Impairment and Special Education to children with intellectual disabilities with focus on ADL(Activities of Daily Living), motor skills and educational activities.
