Working with special kids not an offbeat career: Caritas Goa

PANAJI: Nineteen-year-old Mohammad Shaikh from Vasco animatedly expresses his joy of being able to earn his daily bread by selling imitation jewellery, paper bags and paintings. Nothing unusual about that. But what makes Shaikh stand out from the rest of the working class is his joy of being accepted as an equal instead of being branded disabled and left to his misery.
Shaikh has deafblindness and partial vision, a condition that is rampant in our society yet goes almost unheard of.
For nearly 17 years, Shaikh was treated like an outcast
and was not entitled to even
basic education.
Two years ago, special educators of Caritas Goa conducted a survey all over the state and identified him as one who qualifies to be a part of their project which aims at uplifting the deafblind.
Unlike most others who would take up a conventional job, these twenty something youngsters found their calling in working with individuals with the condition of deafblindness and/or multi-sensory impairment. For them, serving as special educators did not stem out of circumstance but purely out of passion.
“We are professionals,” asserts Reflino Fernandes, 25. “We have received training in order to qualify for this job and therefore are at par with any other professional of other careers. A lot of people feel that this is an offbeat career path, but it’s not. It’s just like any other profession. We have a 9 to 5 job wherein we train deafblind children and young adults to communicate through sign language, visual cues, facial expressions and body language,” he says.
Sabyasachi Deb, 24, special educator, trained at the Helen Keller institute, Mumbai. “It’s a very challenging field. For a normal person, 83% learning is through visual senses, 11% through hearing and 2% is through taste, smell and touch each. So we have to communicate and teach then through touch which is very challenging. Early intervention in these cases is very important so that they can learn at an early stage,” he said.
“Everyone takes up engineering and medicine but we took up deafblind studies. We have to achieve a goal with each child. We as humans are responsible for other humans. For parents it’s an achievement to even make their child hold a spoon. We financially sustain ourselves through a humble salary but the best part is that we get peaceful sleep at night,” he said.
The youngsters work with deafblind whose ages vary from 1.5 years to 23 years. Though Caritas Goa has its own centre for the pupils, their major focus is on home based programme. They are currently funded by Sense International India.
Reshma Swami, 25, another special educator says, “Working with special children has given me a lot to learn. My dear ones tried to discourage me especially because of the day to day exhaustion, both physical and mental; but I persisted because it is a job that makes me happy,” she said.