West Bengal

Sanchar 

Sanchar was established in 1988 to work with children and adults with disabilities in the rural areas of West Bengal.  Over the past 20 years, Sanchar has become one of the leading disability organisations in India, working across four Indian districts of West Bengal, Assam, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh. Sanchar believes in a barrier free environment where deaf people are involved and consulted in the decisions that affect their lives. Their work consists in raising awareness and support among government officials, and empowering parents to demand better services for their children.

Several parents groups have been established at district and state level and have been instrumental in the campaign to raise awareness of the rights of deaf people in their communities. Parents have greatly benefited from training in communication, disability rights, advocacy and leadership and greater awareness is being developed as parents are reaching out to new parents in new communities.  Sanchar aims to work through parents’ groups to improve communication between deaf children and their families, teachers and peers, enabling deaf children to play a greater role in community life and gain fair access to the services they are entitled to.

Graham Bell Centre for the Deaf

Deaf Child Worldwide is supporting Graham Bell Centre for the Deaf (GBCD), based in Pandua in West Bengal.   GBCD was set up 19 years ago and works with rural deaf children, parents, teachers and community health workers.  The aim of the project is to ensure that deaf children are identified as early as possible and given the appropriate support to become active members of their community.  To do this GBCD works very closely with the child's parents and wider family and with community members. Parents are also trained and empowered to lobby for the rights of their deaf child and to improve the services available to them locally such as education and health services.

Nir Ideal Home

Nir is based in Parganas District, a rural area of West Bengal. It was set up in 2002 primarily to support children with disabilities and has grown ever since.  NIR provides extra educational support to deaf children by supplementing mainstream services and proving home support. Although all children are entitled to a free education in India, many schools remain poorly equipped to teach disabled students.  Deaf students can still face many obstacles to education in the form of discrimination, poorly trained teachers and a lack of teaching resources.  NIR work to improve mainstream services by providing information, support and training for CBR workers, teachers and parents who can all use improved communication skills to support the educational and social development of deaf children.

NIR believes that the family is the most important influence on a deaf child’s development and works to raise the expectations of parents and the wider community regarding deaf children’s potential.  The project wants to enable parents and the extended family of deaf children to fully support the development of their children. It aims to do this through raising awareness of the issues surrounding social and emotional needs of deaf children, facilitating the development of networks of deaf children’s parents’ groups for mutual support and motivating parents to take up roles as community leaders and have control over their own lives and the lives of their children.