414 chapter 45
How small, local programs spread to new villages and areas
Bottom-up programs tend to spread through popular demand. As the news of the
program travels from family to family and town to town, even a small program based
in a single village can reach far in its impact. For example, Project PROJIMO is based
in a village of less than 1,000 and has a staff of a dozen disabled villagers. In its first 4
years, PROJIMO has attended to the needs of over 1,000 disabled children from over
100 towns and villages and the slums of several large cities. (Since roughly one child in
every 100 people is moderately to severely disabled, PROJIMO is in effect serving a
population of over 100,000.)
There are various ways that bottom-up or ‘people-centered’ programs tend to spread.
We speak of their growth as ‘organic’ because they grow and spread in a living, whole
sort of way, like seeds into trees.
In Project PROJIMO, some of the young people from neighboring communities, who
first come for rehabilitation, decide to stay and to work for a while in the program. In
the process they learn skills which they can use to help in the rehabilitation of other
persons when they return to their own communities. In some cases, other villages and
village-based health programs have sent young disabled persons to apprentice with
PROJIMO for several months, in order to help start similar activities on return to their
communities.
Another people-centered program that started small and has spread to many other
towns is the Community Rehabilitation Development Program in Peshawar, Pakistan.
This is discussed on p. 520.
ACTIVITIES IN THE COMMUNITY TO WIN INTEREST AND UNDERSTANDING
Group activities in a village or neighborhood can help improve understanding of and
interaction with the disabled children. Four types of activities that have proved especially
useful are discussed in the next 4 chapters:
• A ‘Playground for all children’
• CHILD-to-child activities
• Popular theater
• A children’s workshop for making toys
Any of these activities may be used to
gain people’s interest and involvement
when starting a community rehabilitation
program. Or they can be used to increase
understanding even where no special program
is planned. For example, the workers in a
village with a rehabilitation center can visit
neighboring villages and put on skits or puppet
Playground for all children—PROJIMO
shows about disability prevention. They might
also talk with school teachers, local health workers or concerned parents about
developing CHILD-to-child activities, or organize local children to build a ‘playground
for all children’. Project PROJIMO took a truckload of school children to a neighboring
village to help the children there build their own playground. Nearly 100 children and
adults built the playground in one day.
After these 4 chapters, we will explore other aspects of social integration and
opportunities for the disabled.
Disabled village Children