Our world today is full of pain and poverty. Many of us wish we could do something constructive to alleviate the suffering to certain extent; but do we really know where start?

According to the UN estimates, about tenth of the humanity is disabled. On that basis around 80 million in India are disabled. For decades, problems and prospects of disabled persons have not received adequate attention due to other crucial problems India has had to face after becoming politically independent. Fortunately there is presently an increasing awareness of the meaningful contribution that the disabled people can make to society and emphasis therefore should be laid on family support service, as it is not possible to provide every disabled person a berth in the homes for the disabled.

The Family Support Service (FSS) is aimed at providing help to the disabled people living in crowded slums and neglected, poverty stricken colonies who are generally not in a position to make both ends meet. The FSS includes creation of self-employment opportunities, teaching of crafts and skills, arranging medical cover including treatment and ophthalmic surgery for disabled people. The FSS gives special care to polio stricken children of the slums. For example, getting free operation done, providing calipers free of cost, getting these children admitted to various government schools and fixing donors for them. The work also includes teaching tailoring and cutting to women and helping them in their livelihood. It also helps the old people to get the old age pension from Delhi Administration.

All of us may not have the same initiative, but if we try, all of us can do something at a personal level to improve the situation. One has to begin from somewhere. And this beginning has been made in the right earnest by the Delhi Cheshire Home through a selfless social worker of Janakpuri, Meenu Saxena. She is doing FSS purely on voluntary basis and taking it as a challenge to do something for the needy and poor disabled children. Under her supervision, the Delhi Cheshire Home has been able to provide the following facilities: at FSS Janakpuri West Delhi.

1. Training in skills like tailoring, chalk making, painting and other handicraft; so that the disabled people can be economically self-reliant.
2. Provision of medical check up and treatment, including physiotherapy and Ayurvedic oil massage.
3. Arranging calipers through co-ordination with other organization who give these free.
4. Running literacy classes with the help of volunteer teachers in a local temple for children up to class four.
5. Arranging admissions for the disabled children in various schools and providing assistance for uniforms and scholarships.

Encouraged with this experience the Delhi Cheshire Home is going to take up similar family support project to other localities.

The gap between what is needed and what is being provided to the retarded is wide. It is likely to widen further, because of the expansion of industry, transportation and progressive reduction in immortality rate. The community as a whole must shoulder its moral and social responsibility. Let us get on with it in right earnestness.