Educating young blind children for a better future

Sarv is six years old; he lives at home with his mother, an elder brother and a younger sister.  He was born 26 weeks premature with not only stage 1 Bilateral ROP which led to low vision but also physical problems like twisted legs which do not allow him to walk. Due to the lack of exercise his muscles have not developed properly and have become stiff. Unfortunately Sarv comes from a broken home. His father, an unemployed abusive alcoholic who rarely comes home and does not support his family in any way.

When we first met Sarv, he was living in a two bedroom apartment which lacked basic necessities like chairs, tables and beds. His diet was mostly liquid and thus lead to his malnutrition, which was a major contributing factor to the lack of physical development. Due to his mother’s financial situation and with two other children to take care of, she did not have access to any form of transportation to take Sarv to any of his doctor’s appointment. As a result Sarv had not received any medical attention prior to our visit. We immediately sent some basic food and rations to his home in order to help improve his standard of living whilst we helped formulated a plan to help him get back onto the road to recovery and sourced some secondary sources of income and support through organisations like JKM and NOG.

In the short time we have worked with Sarv we have seen tremendous improvement, through the physiotherapy training we have seen better movement of the legs, arms and hips and with the help of the teachers at St. Nicholas he is now learning how to interact with the outside world.  In our most recent visit we are happy to report that Sarvethiran can not only balance himself and is now able to recognise alphabets, everyday objects and familiar faces.

His trainer said that, “ When I started to help Sarv he was not very responsive and quite often resisted and cried during the exercises but over time he has been able to recognize me and smiles when I come for our sessions. It is great to see that he is improving so quickly and is much healthier than when I first came to visit him, I believe that soon enough he will be learning how to read and write.”

Since his last session with our teachers and trainers, we have begun working on being able to read, write, count and draw.This would not have been possible without the loving support we receive from all of you through your generous donations. To maximize the impact of your donation, donate on the 15th of june. Global giving will match your donation dollar for dollar on this day.