Abdul, a barber, runs a small shed in the Saraswati Kunj slum community with a mirror, chair, and few scissors. He says he migrated from Bengal in 2000, and after many attempts to find a job, he set up a shop independently. When his son had a fever, which didn’t go for a while, a field worker from Sukarya approached him and told him about the clinic and medical facilities in the locality. There he came across the physiotherapy unit and got counseling for the first time for his problems with arthritis. Since then, he has received medical aid from the organization for himself and his son and now calls it his family home.

Moushumi, a resident of the same Saraswati Kunj slum, was nine months pregnant with her second child. Before her interactions with Sukarya, Moushumi was clueless about pre/post-natal care, the importance of eating right during pregnancy, immunizations, etc. However, with the organization’s help, she overcame the problems of conceiving the first time and now carries her second child confidently.

Most of the slum-dwellers are domestic workers and manual laborers. It’s common to find them suffering from musculoskeletal problems like arthritis. Injuries due to occupational hazards are rampant too. For such people, having access to a physiotherapy clinic is rare. To address this issue, Sukarya set up a full-fledged physiotherapy unit on its premises and started providing services free of cost to the poor or at a subsidized rate for those who could afford them with the help of local physiotherapists. The Physiotherapy clinic started to manage pain-related issues of poor women working in residential colonies or slums.

It can be a common misconception that physiotherapy benefits only people recovering from an illness or injury. However, physiotherapy is ideal for supporting people with disabilities to participate in required physical activities. For example, supporting anyone with an intellectual disability to access the local physiotherapy unit may mean meeting the World Health Organization’s recommendation of 150 mins of moderate physical activity per week. This improves their health, enabling them to make friends and increase their safety as people in their local community get to know and look out for them.

Even though Maternal-Child Health & Nutrition have been the focus area of Sukarya since 1998, Sukarya opened its Physiotherapy & Rehabilitation Centre on 15th August 2005. It was a step taken by the leadership team of Sukarya to emphasize the importance of physiotherapy as an effective treatment and its preventive role in conditions that affect an individual’s musculoskeletal system, like arthritis or injuries by accident. Moreover, Sukarya allowed physiotherapists to support people with non-physical needs. For example, people diagnosed with Autism, psychosocial, or intellectual disabilities could benefit from physiotherapy center.

Read the full article about healing and rehabilitation by Debadutta Dash at Global Washington.