In the "Valley of Gods", discover and follow the progress of the Handimachal programme for special-need children in Kullu (Himachal Pradesh, India).
This post was written by our local Speech Therapist, Ajay Kyashap, before the Christmas holiday. I would like to share with my friends the techniques that I have learned from Denise who came all the way from Canada to Handimachal to enhance my skills...
Dear friends, For those who can read French, I am happy to communicate the programme of the festival organised by our mother NGO "La maison des Himalayas" for its 20th anniversary. A unique opportunity to discover unknown aspects of life in various communities...
Here I am again, back in Kullu valley since one week now. As usual I have set my “base camp” in a small cottage on the edge of the deodar cedar forest inhabited by the exquisite and holly temple of Hadimba goddess, in Dhungri village, just above Manali....
At the time I am posting this text, Catriona Helliwell's six month mission as a volunteering occupational therapist in the Handimachal Kullu Therapy Unit is already over since more than two weeks, as she lef Kullu on 3rd March 2011. She has since been...
Kanica, our physiotherapist in the Handimachal Kullu Therapy Unit, sent me a message a few days ago, giving good news about Saarika, a 15 year old girl from a nearby village. Saarika lost both parents and lives with her uncle’s family, and she does not...
On November 29th, the team of the Handimachal Kullu Therapy Unit spent the whole Sunday in Bagan, a remote village high above Kullu (in Shilana penchayat), in order to hold a new meeting with the local population. Thanks to the active involvement of the...
It has been a great privilege to have had Romain as an Occupational Therapist colleague at the Unit. A special thanks to him, to teach me the carpentry skills very much necessary to make handy therapy resources. In the four months of our association,...
While Chloé, our APA volunteer, left Kullu a few days ago and is now back at home in France, Shruti and Romain have been experimenting a new transportation mean (motorbike) for their home visits villages of Kullu valley this week. You will find below...
Since last April, we have been trying to hire an Indian speech and language therapist, without success up to this date. Himachal Pradesh does not seem to be attractive enough for this profession: demand from families is very new, hospitals have not opened...
The Handimachal team conducted a workshop for the teachers of the government schools of Manali and Naggar block on 17 August, with a primary aim of spreading a word about the prevalence and impact of disability on the children of the Kullu valley and...
“My child knows everything but I cannot understand why he doesn’t perform in his written tests.” “My child has a lot of knowledge but he fails in his tests.” “My child gets good marks in his written tests but he fails in his oral exams.” Yes we arrived...
Today I speak more like a human being sharing experiences of learning and understanding a child, rather than an Occupational Therapist imparting therapy to a so called Autistic child. For the purpose of this article, we can distill Autism’s myriad characteristics...
A post by Shruti More, our permanent OT in Kullu Community Based Rehabilitation is a strategy within general community development for the rehabilitation, equalization of opportunities and social inclusion of all people with disabilities. The primary...
After welcoming Naveen, our local OT, in our team on 1st December, we had the surprise to learn from him that he needed several weeks off in February and April, and even more, when everybody came back from Christmas holidays, no Naveen! If having a local...
URGENT - Our association is urgently looking for an experienced occupational therapist liable to volunteer for a 2 to 5 month period, as soon as possible after 15 January 2012. The volunteer will work in very close cooperation with the local team (physiotherapist...
While BRO teams are striving to complete the excavation and tunnelling works which will allow (in 2015 ?) to avoid the dangerous road over Rohtang pass and create an all-weather route to Leh and Lahaul-and-Spiti valleys, Christelle is delivering in the...
Dear friends, I have received nice pictures from our team in Kullu, and I have organised them in short slideshows to share with you such positive moments. Take a look, I hope they will help you escape, for a few minutes, the fear of economic recession...
It is hard to believe that almost five weeks have passed since I arrived in my adopted ‘home town’ of Kullu. Since the beginning of February I have been learning about the great work done in the Handimachal Unit as well as endeavoring to meet the children...
The Ball Pool is a therapeutic product, which provides a multi-sensory environment that will awaken the senses or calm them down, depending on the child. How cool is that… two opposite effects in one product. Inside a ball pit, the 800 balls create a...
Romain, our OT volunteer from France, will finish his mission on Monday 15 July and the next volunteers already knocked on the door of the “blue house”: Tori North (OT volunteer) and Gaëlle Leclercq (APA volunteer) both arrived in Kullu at the end of...
On Sunday, November 1st, 2009, the young team of our Handimachal Kullu Therapy Unit organised a full day awareness camp for the benefit of families in Chauparsa penchayat (group of villages), near Kullu. Our friend Raju (who himself is a disabled man...
Handimachal Kullu Therapy Unit , a pediatric rehabilitation centre at work in the Himalayas is seeking a motivated Speech Therapist to work full-time at its Kullu-Manali Centre. Essentials for the Job – Bachelors in Speech pathology and Audiology. Job...
Within the next week I (Alycia) will finish at the Unit and Samantha shall take over the OT volunteer post. Shruti is due to return to from her mountaineering course a week after Samantha arrives and this will then see a consistent team for 6 months which...
On behalf of the team in the Handimachal Kullu Therapy Unit and children who are registered with us, I'd like to say a huge thank you to all those on the tiny Isle of Eigg (Scotland), for your generosity and support in your recent curry/quiz fundraising...
It’s a long winter in France, and a long one too in Himachal, with heavy snow falls in Kullu valley this year. As expected, the attendance by children decreased due to transportation difficulties and cold temperatures, but less than previous years, which...
