Date:14/06/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/06/14/stories/2004061410110400.htm

New Delhi

Rehabilitation courses through distance mode planned

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, JUNE 13. With the start of the new semester this year, Bangalore University in collaboration with the Rehabilitation Council of India will provide post-graduate diploma, diploma and certificate courses through the distance mode to develop a new set of professionals who are experts in community based rehabilitation (CBR) in rural areas.

The diploma courses are of one year duration and the certificate course has duration of two months. The post-graduate diploma programme will be targeted at graduates in any discipline, preferably in life sciences who wish to pursue a career in the field of rehabilitation. The one year diploma programme in CBR will impart skills to meet rehabilitation needs of the following categories of disability - mental, visual, hearing, locomotor, physical and neurological disabilities.

CBR encourages strategies that speed up rehabilitation process of the disabled by making use of the resources available within the community in a local area. It is a new concept and encourages community participation for the rehabilitation of the disabled. Under this, motivated village level volunteers, preferably disabled themselves, are involved through proper training for mobilising and motivating other disabled, their families and community to make them aware about the services available for the disabled people and helping them in getting these facilities and making them aware about the potentials of the disabled persons as useful members of the society.

In Delhi, Amar Jyoti has been conducting community-based rehabilitation programmes for the disabled for over a decade now. They are operating in 30 urban slums. Their projects have been focusing on education and vocational training for people with disability. Some of the projects in Khichripur and Trilokpuri in Delhi are fully sustainable now and the communities have become economically independent. Amar Jyoti also serves as a centre for practical training to CBR students.

"With the majority of disabled population living in the rural areas of the country, it is important to expand services to those areas. CBR as a professional course has been a success in the South and it remains to be seen how organisations and individuals understand this concept in the North," says Major H.P.S Ahluwalia, Chairman, RCI.

The new courses through distance mode in CBR will open many avenues to the students. The working opportunities are in both government and non-government organisations. In addition to the Government support to CBR programmes, many private donors and foreign development aid organisations are supporting disability programmes.

CBR has had a relatively long-standing presence in southern India. The four southern states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Kerala have one of the most extensive networks of CBR programmes in the world. Now with the launch of the university recognised programmes, CBR networks in this area will be strengthened further opening an avenue for the prospective students.