Date:16/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/16/stories/2008121652550300.htm

Tamil Nadu

Centre for mentally challenged opened

Staff Reporter

It can accommodate 25 persons

Inauguration: Collector M.Rajendran (right) with a person with mental disability at the rehabilitation centre at Kosalai near Tiruvannamalai.

Tiruvannamalai: With an objective to help those with mental disability and who are deserted by their families, a rehabilitation centre has been set up by the District Disabled Rehabilitation Office at Kosalai village near here.

District Collector M. Rajendran, who conceived the idea, inaugurated it. The centre has a capacity to accommodate 25 persons.

The Collector said the aim of the centre was to provide them a dignified living and proper treatment for those in need.

Subsequently, they will be provided vocational training and efforts will be taken to send them back to their families, after proper counselling to their family members.

The Collector, who had sent a request to the government seeking funds for this centre, has also given a call to philanthropists and industrialists to help to this rehabilitation centre. The Little Hearts Society for the Upliftment of the Deprived Communities will run the centre under the direct observation of District Disabled Rehabilitation Officer Charles Prabakaran.