Church-run center helps disabled children avoid exploitation

Children born disabled and poor in Bangladesh can be rejected by their families and fall prey to criminal syndicates that force them to beg on the streets in all weather.

A boy practices computer skills at the nuns´ center

Such rackets can bring the masterminds wealth, but provide barely enough food and shelter to keep the young beggars alive.

But for some lucky ones, the Church-run Centre for Disabled Children has offered an alternative to this bleak life.

The center was established at its premises in Rajshahi, 300 kilometers northwest of Dhaka, in 1992. It has helped more than 100 disabled children, irrespective of caste and religion.

The Catechist Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (CIC), popularly known as the Shanti Rani Sisters, run and finance the facility for boys and girls with physical or mental disabilities, as well as orphans. It provides shelter, education and professional training.

Sister Deepika Palma runs the center, assisted by two other CIC nuns.

“Just a little assistance for the disabled can help them manifest their latent qualities. They can lead a life just like ordinary people,” she said in a recent interview. “Not only do we provide them shelter and education, but we also train them in skills including sewing, operating computers and making rosaries and greeting cards.”

Martin Tudu, 30, has found the center also provides a way to give back some of the kindness he was shown earlier in his life. Polio struck him as a baby, and Tudu´s parents were unable to care for his special needs. Luckily for him, however, they do not simply abandon him, as happens to many children. Instead, they brought him to the center in the late 1980s, when it was located in Dinajpur, another northwestern city.

Now he offers vital assistance to the center, helping to keep disabled youngsters off the street and to give them occupational skills they can use to earn a living for.

Tudu himself is a shining example of what people who are physically or mentally disabled can accomplish if given the chance. He teaches children and adults computer skills at the Sick Assistance and Medical Centre, another Church-run facility in Rajshahi. Making his way around the city in his wheelchair, he sometimes appears more mobile than many people who can walk.

“The Church rehabilitated and trained up many disabled children like me. Society kept me away, but the Church lovingly helped me get an education and gain skills to live as an ordinary human being,” Tudu said on June 12.

“I´ll remain forever grateful to the nuns for helping me to survive in an unfavorable society for disabled people,” he added.

Like Tudu, Robi Hasdak, 22, ended up at the center after polio struck him as a child. He still lives and studies there.

“During my leisure time I work as a private tutor for children and young people at the center. Besides studying, I make rosaries, and Christmas and Easter cards. All of that I learned here,” he said.

Sister Palma commented: “We are happy that we have been able to give a future to at least 100 disabled people. If we had assistance from other voluntary organizations and donors, we would be able to help even more.”