Project Community care

Niketan offers practical home-based care and community care to 255 children and young people with complex disabilities in the thanas of Ghior, Daulatpur and Badda in Bangladesh.

Children with complex care needs resulting from multiple chronic conditions, like functional and cognitive impairments, are often not able to come to a special school or center. Their disability has a significant impact on their lives, including interactions with other children or adults. An average family in rural Bangladesh who gets a baby with a functional and/or cognitive impairment, can seldom rely on professional support where they live. When the (grand)mother realizes that something is wrong in the development of the child, it is difficult to find out what is wrong. She has to rely on local knowledge and facilities, which are often lacking up-to-date knowledge and are therefore not in the best developmental interest of the child. This may lead to high costs for incorrect advice, worsening the family’s poverty situation.

Veranda schools

In upazilla Ghior and Daulatpur, Niketan organizes veranda schools in 19 villages. These schools are located in the village where the children live, on the veranda of the house of one of the families. We also provide practical home-based care for 98 children, which helps the children to develop cognitively, functionally and physically. This form of care is offered to parents who, for whatever reason, cannot attend a (veranda) school and to children who are in primary school but need regular physiotherapy.

“Knowledge and care suited to the village community. Relatively independent, not dependent on specialists.”

 

 

Volunteers

To raise awareness in the community and foster a more positive attitude towards people with disabilities, 90 people from the community, such as high school and college students, are buddies for children with disabilities. Niketan has 7 years of experience with this buddy system. These volunteers spend one to two hours a week with the child. They support the child’s family, play with the child and take some weight off the mother’s shoulders. By taking the child outside, they meet other people and other people meet them. This helps to reduce the negative stigma.

Read our evaluation report or  ‘learning brief’ of this project or learn how we involve our children in inclusive education?

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Project cost

Total Per child
€33.405 €131
per year
€11
per month

Stories

News

23 May 2023 Evaluation CBR program

With nearly a decade of experience implementing Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR), DRRA and Niketan commissioned an evaluation. The…

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28 March 2022 How care at home combats (social) poverty

Our veranda schools seem to be a solution for sustainably embedding care and education in local communities. They…

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28 April 2021 Two veranda schools handed over to volunteers

In 2019, the idea was born to explore whether we could gradually hand over our veranda schools to…

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17 September 2018 A research on meningitis

For our minor International Health and Development, which we (Janine van der Meij, Derek Mersch and Stefanie Strasters)…

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9 July 2019 Leadership training for vulnerable girls

Research suggests that women with disabilities are more likely to experience domestic violence, and sexual assault than women…

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26 September 2018 Reaching the hard to reach

A large number of children with disabilities still face exclusion and discrimination. They are invisible, often locked in…

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16 June 2021 Niketan is building an ecosystem for special children

A young housewife, Shurma Akhter’s son was born a seemingly healthy child. However, as a toddler when he…

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Subjects

  • early interventoin

    Provide support and advice to parents about ways to mitigate the problems in the development of their young child.

  • Education

    Provide a challenging learning environment based on individual possibilities and taking limitations into account.

  • Paramedical Care

    Provide care aimed at improving the functioning of the body; provide basic orthopedic equipment and rehabilitation aids.

  • Socialization

    Actively promote and encourage the participation of children and young people with disabilities in society.