In the second part of this series on Personal Safety and Sexuality Education for children and adolescents with disabilities, Dr. Sangeeta Saksena and Renu Singh of Enfold Trust focus on sexuality education for children and young individuals on the autism spectrum and those with Intellectual disabilities. They even discuss certain myths and concepts.
Read the first part here
We begin with a few common terms and concepts used in this article.
Sexuality: Derived from Latin ‘secare’ meaning…
Autism
Diana Tholoor, a Movement and Theatre trainer and Director of Plays recently worked with a cast of 50 children and young adults on the autism spectrum to mount a production of Jungle Book on stage. She shares her perspective in the second part of this interview series. 1. Why theatre? How does theatre help children and adults on the autism spectrum? Theatre is an integrated art form that produces simultaneous results through a single production. Amongst the many alternate…
Sarbani Mukherjee Mallick Founder & Executive Director at Bubbles Centre for Autism in a detailed interview on the experience and learnings of putting together a full fledged stage production of Jungle Book with a cast of 50 children and young adults on the autism spectrum. Part 1 of a 2 part series. Why theatre? How does theatre help children and adults on the autism spectrum? One of the major challenges for children on the autism spectrum disorder is social skills. I use to…
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Retail giant Big Bazaar has opened its stores to persons with disabilities by introducing inclusion initiatives and infrastructural changes that are disabled-friendly. An interview with Vineet Saraiwalla, Inclusion Lead, Future Retail Limited, who has helmed the movement and himself has 90% visual impairment on what needs to be done behind the scenes to make this feasible. It is for the first time that Big Bazaar’s Republic Day sale had an exclusive 2 day preview in all its stores for…
Can you imagine a child who has never been to a playground or a park, never been able to swing or slide! For whom open play spaces are forbidding and unfriendly. Today, in India nearly all existing outdoor play spaces are built without keeping in mind the needs of a child with disability. Children with disabilities and developmental differences are forced to stay away from playgrounds because they are inaccessible, do not have appropriate facilities and play infrastructure for them. When…
On World Human Rights Day and the day after World Patient Safety Day, TogetherWeCan and PatientsEngage would like to bring the focus on safety of children at therapy centres. Despite an ongoing petition in Kerala since 2015, progress has been slow. Why is a child's right to safety not a priority? In light of a couple of recent incidents, we bring you an update on the petition on therapy centre regulation by Seema Lal. In October 2018 the following incident happened in a government therapy…
When antiepileptic drugs fail to control seizures and convulsions, an epilepsy surgery may be recommended. Dr. Rajan Shah, Neurologist, Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital assures that with advances in technology and dedicated centres, epilepsy surgeries have become safer and can be considered a treatment option. What are the common causes of epilepsy? Common causes of epilepsy in children and adults are different. They are briefly enumerated as – Head trauma – SDH, EDH, contusions.…
Personal safety and sexuality education is critical for children and young individuals with Intellectual disabilities, auditory or visual impairments. But it often does not get the right level of attention from parents and teachers. Enfold Proactive Health Trust, a Bangalore based NGO, has devised a project ‘Suvidha’ to address this gap. Read on. All children, irrespective of the ‘normalcy’ of their neural or physical development, have a right to safety and dignity. Personal safety education…
