In April, HART united three of its partners to discuss how rehabilitative healthcare for people with disabilities can be introduced to communities in Burma. Dr. Sasa’s team from Health and Hope (Chin State) and Community Health Workers from Shan Women’s Action Network (Shan State) were given preliminary training by Vardan Tadevosyan from the Lady Cox Rehabilitation Centre in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The research revealed a significant lack of provisions for people with disabilities in Burma. Most notably, in the remote areas where our partners operate, people living with disabilities have zero access to any type of relevant care, causing them to suffer greatly. With this in mind, HART sought to connect the knowledge and expertise of HART partner Vardan Tadevosyan in Nagorno-Karabakh with that of our Burmese partners.
Since 1999, Baroness Cox has supported Vardan in his provision of disability rehabilitation in a school building. He has trained more than 60 staff to provide therapeutic services for more than 1,000 people per year with physical and psychological disabilities. Vardan’s experience in providing such education in a post-conflict zone means that he is distinctively equipped to provide care for the disabled in Burma.
Vardan was able to assess the potential for training Community Health Workers. Hoping to improve the understanding of the concept of rehabilitation, he highlighted his priority to “improve disabled mobility, independence, walking skills, wheelchair use and self-care”. These improvements will give disabled people more confidence and opportunity to integrate into their community, increasing their self-esteem and reducing stigma surrounding disability.
Source: Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust
