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Our
Partners
CBR Network
"Community Based Rehabilitation leads to the
revitalization of social responsibility of the community towards each and every member in
the community........."
Purpose of setting up CBR Network:
CBR Network was set up in 1993 to break the
isolation of NGOs working in the field of disability. It was felt that the knowledge,
experience and skills acquired by the various NGOs needed to be shared to avoid
duplication of efforts. Thus CBR Network works as a Networking organization in the South
Asian region. Members, or ‘Network Users’ as they are called, do not pay any fee
for becoming members. A nodal agency is identified in every state and they are responsible
for networking in that State. Networking works very well when networks are established at
district levels also. Networks have been established in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri
Lanka and Pakistan. The country coordinators ensure the successful networking in their
countries.
Aims and Objectives:
As mentioned above the aim of CBR Network
is to break the isolation of NGOs working in the field of disability, women and child
development, and rural development. Using the philosophy and practice of Community Based
Rehabilitation for persons with disability as an entry point and finally developing the
whole rural community into an ideal is one of the major objectives of CBR Network.
Capacity building of the NGOs in the areas of project initiation, fund raising, corpus
building, management and evaluation of the projects and financial management is also one
of the major objectives. Ultimate aim is to provide good quality services in the area of
rehabilitation including educational rehabilitation, removal of barriers including
socio-cultural, attitudinal barriers and of course physical barriers, provide vocational
training to ensure that the persons with disability becomes an economically contributing
member of society, forming self help groups of persons with disabilities, their families
and other members of the community. Networking among these SHGs will ensure that the
rights of PWDs are not violated and the policies formed, whether at the Parliament level
or at the Panchayath level, will have the full participation of the PWDs. Building
awareness in the community as to the needs of the PWD, another objective, is done by
regularly publishing newsletters, fact sheets and booklets, which are then translated into
the local languages.
A brief on projects undertaken so far:
CBR Network has undertaken various projects for networking
as well as research in the field of disability. Some of them are as follows:
- CBR Networking in South Asian Region:
This was the initial project taken up by CBR Network. It promoted the concept of
Networking in the South Asian region. Nodal Agencies were elected for the various
countries. In India, 4 zonal networks were set up. They have all been independently
functioning.
- Portage to Every Village:
In this project Mrs Indumathi Rao trained 50 Master trainers, who in turn trained 10
middle level workers each, who in turn trained 10 grassroots level workers. The grassroots
level workers worked with a minimum of 5 children each. The total number of workers thus
trained at the grassroots level was 3000. Trainees were from both India and Nepal. From
India there was an even distribution of trainees from nearly all the states.
- Joyful Inclusion:
This inclusive education pack was developed as part of the research program of CBR
Network. This is one of the major achievements during the last year. Inclusive Education,
is a method wherein all children, irrespective of their special needs, get educated in the
same classroom by the same teacher. The general teacher will have to be trained on how to
facilitate the learning of children with special needs in her classroom. As a first step
the curriculum prepared by NCERT and in practice throughout the country was divided into
concepts and sub concepts and learning out comes called the curriculum based criterion
referenced data base (CRD). This was done by education experts. General teachers, special
educators, teachers from DIETS, DPEP, DSERT and others participated in a workshop to
prepare the facilitator cards, which would help the teachers plan their lessons. Teachers
in the project area of Hemmigepura, Kumblahalli and Aralumallige gram panchayaths
participated in another workshop to learn to use these facilitator cards and to prepare
child self learning activity cards. The evaluation format was also prepared to enable the
teacher to evaluate the initial and quarterly learning levels of each child. Multi-sensory
teaching learning materials were also prepared and distributed to the schools. The CRD for
additional curriculum such as Braille, Orientation and mobility, Auditory training, Speech
therapy, etc. was also prepared along with a manual on assistive devices required for each
area of disability. The whole pack was called the Joyful Inclusion Pack. This was
disseminated to the 30 schools in the project area and is now being implemented
successfully. The pack has also been distributed to the various education departments,
govt. agencies and other NGOs in the field of education of children with disability.
Plans for the future:
- To develop a corpus to sustain basic networking activities.
- To establish a research and development and training
institute to promote research in the areas of CBR, Inclusive Education, Portage,
developing social indices, E-based training.
- To undertake studies to measure the effectiveness of govt.
policies into action
- To undertake studies on understanding the roles and
responsibilities of NGO in the changing socio-political-economic scenario such as
decentralisation of the govt., market economy etc.
- To elevate the status of NGOs from mere service/care givers
to participate actively in the policy formulations by training NGOs, creating awareness,
sensitising govt. about NGOs potential, and publishing NGOs approach to development.
- Multi-NGO multi sectoral co-operative approach to poverty
alleviation programs.
- To promote a system of rating of NGOs which is based on self
appraisal to enhance the capability and capacity building of NGOs.
- To include disability issues in the apex institutes such as
IIMs, ISEC, responsible for training policy makers in public policy formulations, research
and development.
CBR Network (South Asia)
#134, 1st Block,
6th Main, BSK III Stage,
Bangalore- 560085.
PH: 080- 6691121
For more information,
please visit www.cbrnet.com
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