Caritas India’s Community Based Rehabilitation Forum (CBRF) had given the opportunity to 6 delegates from Caritas Sri Lanka to visit Chennai to learn about what is happening to differently abled and how India handles them. The delegates had the opportunity to experience the mechanism at village level, intermediary level and the governmental level.
CBRF has established partners in different parts of India and the partners are working with Persons with Disabilities (PwDs). The team visited one such partner, ‘Integrated Rural Community Development Society’ (IRCDS) in Thiruvallur. IRCDS has formed ‘Differently abled People’s Organizations’ (DPO) in the villages and has capacitated DPO members through meetings, awareness programmes and workshops. DPOs look into the welfare and livelihood of its members. They also train them on sustainability and financial self-sufficient by using methods such as ‘Rolling Funds’. ‘Vasanatham’ is one of ‘District Differently abled People Organizations’ (DDPO) working closely with IRCDS. In Vasantham’s general body there are 42 members and they cover 315 villages in Tamil Nadu where 10000 PwDs are benefitted.