Commitments Trust at Glance:

Commitments is a Public Trust working for the last 10 years for the comprehensive development of Persons With Disabilities(PWD) in the most backward areas of Mahabubnagar district - 196 Grama panchayaths of 8 project Mandals i.e. Kosgi, Doulthabad, Bomraspet, Balanagar, Maddur, Ghattu, Dharoor and Maldhakal. The prevalence of disability in this part is more than average of other Mandals of this District and Other Districts in the State of Andhra Pradesh. Presently we are working with 5821 persons with disabilities.

Guiding principles of our work:
The following principles govern the entire work from conception to implementation.
1. Ownership - the PWDs will totally own the entire program and processes
2. Convergence - every activity will be implemented in convergence with government agencies, NGOs, representative of PRIs and other interested persons
3. Compliance with national and international framework - all activities are formulated in compliance with national legislative acts and international conventions.

Accordingly we adopt a different approach for development of PWDs called social or participatory. This is a paradigm shift from the traditional mode of work, charity or service.

Our key interventions are:
oSocial mobilization - building of institutions of the PWDs and their federations
oCapacity building of all stake holders
oRehabilitation services
oLivelihood Promotion
oFacilitate inclusive policies and programs

Social Mobilization - Institution Building

The Commitments Trust promoted 304 self-help groups with 3452 members of persons with disabilities in these eight mandals.
Once these SHG members gained confidence on account of being together and after continuous capacity building programs, they were facilitated to federate at mandal level called Mandal Vikalangula Sangham. In the same way these mandal level sanghams formed a District federation called Zilla Vikalangula Sangham, which is registered under societies registration Act (Mahabubnagar Zilla Velugu Vikalangula Sangham). This district level federation is locally called BISSA Committee by the members. BISSA is a colloquial word meaning the steering. These federations lobby with the government and Non-government organizations for the medical, social, educational and economic development of the persons with disabilities.

Capacity building of all stake holders

The Trust firmly believes that the PWDs have several inherent strengths which ought to be recognized and tapped by taking up various capacity building programs. Similarly all the other stake holders like parents, representatives from line departments and local level authorities need to be sensitized to the disability program. Accordingly Commitments has taken up several capacity building programs to all stake holders on the concepts of social mobilization, the causes and prevention of disabilities and rehabilitation services.

Rehabilitation services

Our rehabilitation approach is community driven and community based. We build the capacities of organizations of the PWDs to assess their requirements and facilitate linkages with service providers both Government and NGOs. This is in addition to deployment of rehabilitation specialists who work in association with the federations of SHGs. These specialists make home visits and provide home based services. As a result of their efforts they could get the required aids and appliances like tricycles, crutches, hearing aids, calipers, and shelter, Barrier free toilets etc. And also these federations identified the needy persons for the surgical corrections to improve and correct the locomotor, vision and hearing problems and arranged required services in collaboration with Government, Non-Government and Corporate Service providers.
The Trust facilitated the federations to assert and demand for their entitlements and benefits from the Government. As a result of this, they could access entitlements like Pensions, shelter, Job cards under NREGA etc.

Other rehabilitation services provided by the Trust are
· Inclusive Education
· Nutrition support to children with severe and profound disabilities
· Establishment of Neighborhood Centers to provide therapy services to all disabled persons particularly children with severe and profound disabilities.
· Education support to students with disabilities to pursue higher studies

Our services are tailored to the individual needs and can include one or more types of therapy. In this regard members of the family are invariably actively involved in process of rehabilitation

Inclusive Education Initiatives

As part of program for overall development of the Persons/Children with Disabilities, the Commitments Trust has started to work in the field of Education as it is the key area for enabling a Child with Disabilities to emerge as an empowered person in the society.

The following are the key activities taken up under inclusive education program:

Sensitization programs for Sarpanchas (Village heads elected by people under local self Government), Village secretaries and other local self government representatives
Monthly meeting with the parents of the children with disabilities and their children for one day on the special education to the children with mental retardation, cerebral palsy and multiple disabilities anchored by special educators and therapists.
Created barrier free environment in 11 schools, facilitated construction of ramps and fitting up of side bars in the schools with the support of local heads, public representatives, community elders, SHGs and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan.

Conducted training to 52 teachers in their mandal level on the behavior and status of the child with disability and need of the inclusive education to those children, and sensitized the other teachers on the same concept with the help of trained teachers.
Referrals to the national institutes and corporate hospitals for reducing the disability, to enable the Children with disabilities to go to the schools and colleges.
Mobilized the aids and appliances like calipers, crutches, hearing aids, white canes, artificial limbs and sticks to enable children with disabilities to go to school(the drop out ratio was reduced in the project area and 74 children was enrolled).

Positioned trained Community based rehabilitation activists in villages numbering 54 to promote the inclusive education concepts and Community Based Rehabilitation concepts in the village,
Conducted trainings to the 11 village level organizations and 3 mandal federations on disability and inclusive education.

Community awareness programmes through the cultural activities on the inclusive education, along with issues relating to rights of child/persons with disabilities, dignity of PWDs and causes & prevention of disabilities
Celebration of events like children's day on 14th Nov and World Disabled Day on 3rd Dec every year to create awareness on the inclusive education and other issues of disability.

Visiting schools and interact with teachers in 24 schools on the inclusive education and importance ofsupport of the non-disabled children in the same school.

We have selected 9 model school in 3 mandals, and formed children peer committees, called in local language as 'Sahavidhyarthi Committee'. These committees will motivate the children with disabilities in the village to come to the school, and provide escort support every day to come to the school and back to home, and also they are motivating the parents of the children with disabilities for the education.

We wrote slogans on inclusive education, rights of PWDs and dignity of PWDs on the walls in all the villages of the project areas.
Sensitization classes to adolescent girls in the high schools on the disability and inclusive education approach, Created awareness among the Anganwadi Workers under ICDS project on the disability and inclusive education approaches.

Nutritious food for Severely and Multiply Disabled Children:

In the project area there are 200 children with severe and multiple disabilities whose mobility is completely constrained. Our grassroots workers and Self Help Group (SHGs) members identified some of them who are suffering from malnutrition which in fact accentuated their disability. We identified such children and started providing nutritional supplements to children like eggs, milk, fruit and bread every day. The entire program from identification, provision of nutrition supplements and release of funds to the SHGs implementing the program is monitored by the BISSA committee. This supplementary food is for a stipulated period of time, until the child who is benefiting from this scheme is able to become strong, has improved mobility and there is an overall improvement. Our experience has been that the average period of this support is 6 to 12 months depending upon the child. In addition to this, these children are also given training in speech therapy, physiotherapy and Activities of Daily Living (ADL) Skills by the local level activists under the supervision of specialists of the Trust for their overall development. 86 children are now covered under this program.

Neighborhood Centers

The Mandal Vikalangula Sanghams started the neighborhood centers for the children with disabilities and non-disabled children in 5 mandals. These enters are places of learning, recreation and treatment for the children with disabilities. All the required equipment like play material, learning material especially suitable for the mentally retarded children is provided in these centers. The volunteer working in this center is well trained and can provide physiotherapy and counseling services. This is a critical intervention of the Trust for the benefit of the children with disabilities and wholly managed by the Mandal Vikalangula Sangam. 8 such centers are functioning now.

Education support program

Under this program the Trust provided through all that is required for the students with disabilities to pursue their studies - note books and other stationery items, school uniform, transportation charges and other aids and appliances like walkers etc. The objective of this is to enable the children to pursue their education who stop further studies for want of things as mentioned above. 116 students are covered under this program with support from Lilian foundation.

Livelihood Promotion

Once the institutions are in place and rehabilitation services are accessed by the members the immediate intervention required was promotion of livelihoods. On continuous capacity building by the Trust, the federations of PWDs could access funds from Government as seed capital and from Commercial Banks as loan. With this money, the members started their micro business establishments, dairy units, invested in agriculture and animal husbandry to enhance their incomes. Impressed by the capacity and camaraderie among the members of SHGs and Federations, the rural development department, Government of Andhra Pradesh has added an amount of Rs. 1.42 Crores (14.2 millions) to the corpus of 8 federations promoted and nurtured by the Trust. That this entire amount is still with these federations shows that the federations of the PWDs have the capacity to manage huge funds and can continuously invest in their ventures for their livelihood promotion.
They could also access an amount of Rs. 11 lakhs(1.1Million) from banks under bank linkage program which is given direct to the SHGs. This amount is invested by the members for their livelihoods promotion and repay back to the Banks.

Achievements at a glance

No. of PWD reached - 6550

No. of SHGs formed - 305

No. of federations formed- 8

No. of PWDs provided rehabilitation services - 9761

Amount of seed capital accessed by federations from Government- Rs. 54.87 lakhs

Neighborhood centres - 8

Amount of funds accessed by Federations as seed capital - Rs. 85 lakhs

Bank Linkage - 20 groups - Rs.11.73 lakhs

No. of stakeholders trained/sensitization - 2560 including public servants

About Commitments Trust

'Commitments' was established as a public Charitable Trust in 1984. It is a support organization to serve the rural poor and the disadvantaged persons.

Major objectives of 'Commitments' are:
· Extend economic and social services to strengthen and enhance the livelihoods of rural poor.
· Build capabilities among rural poor.
· Improve access to services, facilities and entitlements or rural poor.
· Facilitate building of participatory, self-managed institutions among rural poor and the disabled as vehicles of their self-reliance, socio-economic progress and self-respect.
· Serve as a resource centre for training, research and study upon the socio-economic conditions of rural poor.
· Initiate programmes and projects for sustainable development of rural poor and the disabled and facilitate convergence of services and facilities intended for their benefit.
· Provide a platform fo advocacy upon issues and the concerns of rural poor.

VISION:

'Commitments' shares the Vision of similar public organizations that the poor and the disadvantage communities are enthusiastic to overcome the social, economic, cultural and psychological barriers through their own efforts and self-managed institutions. They are capable of attaining higher productivity with improved skills, better assets base and capabilities to utilize the resources to full potential and gain access to services.

MISSION:

Similarly, the Mission of 'Commitments' is to enable the poor and disadvantaged communities to perceive possibilities for change and bring about desired change by excercising informed choices through collective action.

Last update was 11th December 2011
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