The release of ‘Taare Zameen Par’ was probably a silent catharsis moment for most of us. Many people related to it intensely as their own childhood was somewhat like that. While power of cinema brought the trauma of a child with learning disability to the fore front, but in reality there is less number of people working in this domain successfully.
“We don’t consider disability as an impediment”, says Developmental Pediatrician Dr. Samir Dalwai who has been relentlessly working in the field of child psychology. He has been creating innovative solutions along with much required infrastructure where they can be realised.
In 2003, Dr. Dalwai realised that there are children whose issues cannot be tackled by regular pediatricians or doctors. These were issues related to the child’s intelligence, academic orientation and social behaviour which troubled the parents.
Dr. Dalwai shared, “As a pediatrician, I had an eight years old child patient with cerebral palsy. I would refer the mother to Wadia Hospital. She would take the train and carry her child on her shoulder and walk up and down different buildings for speech therapy, occupational therapy & physiotherapy. Most of the centres were located at different places which would make it extremely tiresome for the mother. So I wanted a place where we could have all these services under one roof, facing each other and on the same floor. So that if for example a physiotherapist wanted to speak to the occupational therapist or the doctor, the patient does not have to travel far. There is a difference between a department giving service to a child and a child getting service from various departments. That is the ecosystem we envisioned.” It was this thought and dream that lead to the formation of New Horizons Child Development Centre
The facility, is a state of the art Child Development Centre in Mumbai that provides integrated psychological intervention to children and their families. It has 6 departments that cater to the normal development of every child (Clinical Psychology, Occupational Therapy, Remedial Education, Speech Therapy, Physical Therapy and Nutrition) working in a comprehensive, integrated manner, across five branches in Mumbai. The centre started with one therapist and Dr. Dalwai but has grown tremendously in the last 13 years and now employs 102 expert child psychologists and therapists in Mumbai. It caters to around 1200 children annually.
Dr. Dalwai’s concluded by saying, “We work on a motto, which we call – From Label to Enable. Rather than labeling a child with disability, we work on enabling the child to achieve things which the child or parents aspire to. People say kuch karo kuch fayda hoga, and I call it the “kuch kuch hota hai” syndrome. We have tried to take a subject head on which was largely in the sympathy and charity domain and converted it into objective and target driven model.”
There is certainly a good news for the domain which is now seeing some really dedicated and talent people working in and spreading awareness. One very interesting thing that Dr. Dalwai shared was that there is a sense of competition amongst his family as to who will do more social work and create tangible change on ground. The rarity as it may sound, is certainly an inspiration to the generation.
