What we do
We provide help and support to make life better and more healthy for the vulnerable
Our Activities & Programs
At ODA, we are promoting CBR work directly in 40 panchayats of Karur district and empowering vulnerable women economically to overcome poverty. Also, guiding NGOs, Disabled People’s Organizations and Parents Associations in Tamil Nadu and the Kerala States with networking and required capacity-building measures.
Self-help Group promotion for people with Disabilities
ODA actively promote self-help groups among persons with disabilities in rural areas and build their capacity to access rehabilitation services, initiate productive livelihoods and to claim rightful entitlements from the government.
We are directly working with around 75 SHGs in the Karur district and guiding more than 500 groups promoted by our partner NGOs and DPOs in other parts of the country. The impact has been, that persons with disabilities are now more visible within their communities, they share resources and find solutions together, and lead a life with confidence and high self-esteem.
We plan to promote more such groups in the coming years and empower persons with disabilities through community mobilization and capacity building process.
Livelihood Promotion
Livelihood is critical to combating poverty and is closely linked to basic human rights. It is essential for everyone because it gives degrees of freedom to take control of life; helps improve self-esteem. So it is very essential for leading a life of dignity and respect. In the case of persons with disabilities, livelihood issues become all the more important on account of the negative and discriminatory attitudes of society and other complexities such as lack of accessible transport, availability of conducive infrastructure and services to overcome various socio-economic-political constraints faced by them.
Promotion of Disabled Persons Organisations (DPO)
The DPOs/ Federations are umbrella organisations of persons with disabilities, where persons with disabilities constitute a majority of the board and are well-represented in all levels of the organisation. It is led and controlled by disabled people themselves.
The primary aim of these organisations is empowerment and the growth of self-advocacy of persons with disabilities. They work with the government and other platforms to promote human rights and influence the stakeholders for effective implementation of the programs and legal provisions.
ODA has been instrumental in the promotion of several DPOs in the past and currently works with 21 DPOs, functioning at the block, district and state levels. We build capacity for planning, advocating, managing their aspirations and becoming leaders in the community.
Early Intervention Project
Children born with disabilities and developmental delays are found to be high in number, due to malnutrition, poverty and poor health care services in the area. Many of these children are at risk of missing some of the most important learning and developmental milestones.
To cater to the needs of the young children, we provide early intervention service through home-based support and setting up early intervention centres and extending all possible early intervention service, including medical, education and therapeutic care. Also, we train the caregivers and family members to promote a caring and supportive environment in the homes.
There are 146 children getting home-based services and 32 children from the three early intervention centres established in Keelaveliyur, Tharagampatti and Kadavur areas. These centres are managed by the active involvement of the parents and community stakeholders
Home - Based Rehabilitation
The home-based rehabilitation support is designed to cater to the needs of the children living in rural areas, especially to the children who are not able to access rehabilitation services daily.
The main focus of this intervention is on demystifying disability, empowering and training the caregiver to effectively meet the special needs of their child.
Our community rehabilitation workers extend weekly support to the caregivers and encourage them to provide therapeutic and rehabilitation care on daily basis. The child's progress is monitored periodically by our rehabilitation professional team and they guide the workers and family members with new sets of skills.
Our rehabilitation workers play a crucial role in enhancing ability, and integrate persons with disabilities in social environments, including school, community, and employment. ODA is at present working with 237 children and looks forward to rehabilitating many more from unreached areas.
Training Centres for the youths with intellectual disability
Better understanding the effects of social exclusion on adults with an intellectual disability is a high priority for the community in terms of the social, health and economic costs that result as a consequence of social exclusion.
Social exclusion, loneliness and a lack of friends present many people with intellectual disability with a health and well-being triple jeopardy. Social inclusion can be described as not only being present in a community, but also having meaningful social connections and participating in fulfilling social activities. This includes being more likely to be unemployed long term, have mental health problems, lack a voice in their community and have fewer support networks from friends.
The seeds of lifelong disadvantage are sown early and are socially determined; adults with intellectual disability experience poorer physical and mental health, exercise less, have poorer diets and have more sedentary lifestyle behaviours compared to people without intellectual disability.
In this backdrop, we provide prevocational and vocational training and life skills to lead an independent life at our adult centres. There are 35 youths with intellectual disability attending the training sessions daily for 3 to 4 hours in their nearest centres formed in the villages. We established 5 centres in Thogamalai block and planning to set up two more in the coming year. Regardless of your skillset or financial situation, we would like to invite you to become one of our friends to help the centres continue to thrive.
Education Support
In our project area, many children with disabilities, especially those with moderate or severe impairment, are out of school because of poverty, physical and attitudinal barriers. Lack of adequate education remains the key risk factor for poverty and exclusion for all children, both with and without disabilities.
We support families to invest in children and tailor the interventions, especially of children with disabilities to their individual educational needs. Our workers build rapport with the children and maintain links between the home, community and schools to create a disabled-friendly learning environment in the local schools. The support required for special education, assistive devices, school fees and guidance for higher education is taken into consideration for children with disabilities and other children having poor family support.
Medical Support and Community Mental Health Service
People with disabilities are facing various challenges to the enjoyment of their right to health due to ignorance, poverty and lack of a quality health care system in the villages. The right to health is not only about access to health services; it is also about access to the underlying determinants of health, such as safe drinking water, adequate sanitation and housing.
Our community-based rehabilitation programs support people with disabilities to attain the highest possible level of health, working across health promotion, prevention, medical care, rehabilitation and assistive devices.
Our team works with the health sector and has helped more than 700 children and adults to access medical and surgical care services from government and private hospitals.
Mental health is undeniably one of our most precious possessions, which needs to be nurtured, promoted, and preserved as best as we can. We are promoting community mental health to improve mental health services at all levels of health care for early recognition, adequate treatment and rehabilitation of the persons with mental health problems within the community and in the hospitals. We are at present working with 87 persons with psychosocial disability in Karur district.
Vulnerability Reduction
It is estimated that around 15 % of our target communities are socially vulnerable. Amongst all the States, Tamil Nadu has the third-highest percentage of female-headed households (FHHs) in the country.
The people struggle here for existence due to acute poverty, lack of family and community support. With the collapse of the family, the widows and destitute women are feeling lonely, overburdened with domestic responsibilities, and unable to share their frustrations and loneliness with other family members. The absence of husbands in many families has added to the responsibilities and workload of women who, in many cases, had to abandon their careers to raise the children. They are suffering a high incidence of poverty and occupy the bottom rung of society and shoulder the burden of poverty.
Though women are empowered through self-help groups and development interventions, the widows and destitute women are mostly left out from the social mobilization process and benefit from poverty reduction programs. Poverty and unemployment have the worst effect on them and many struggles to exist and maintain their day to day life. In this backdrop, we began to work with these less privileged women and proactively support for the cause of equal participation of women in social, economic, civil, political and cultural life and eradication of all forms of discrimination.
We are currently working with 380 vulnerable women and they are organised into groups and guided through leadership and poverty reduction measures.
Today there are 380 vulnerable women organised into 17 SHGs and in the process of expanding the mobilisation process in the coming year. SHGs are functioning as a platform for the socio-economic and gender development of women. Besides inculcating leadership abilities, self-empowerment and economic confidence, substantial savings have been mobilised, and SHGs are moving forward to promote an inclusive society and fighting for the rights of persons with disabilities and other marginalised people in their villages.
Promotion of Disability Work
Disability inclusion and expansion of rehabilitation services are taking place at a very slow pace in the country, as there are limited players with professional competency to promote CBR work. From its very beginning, ODA has been committed to promoting community-based rehabilitation work in Tamil Nadu and the Kerala States through CBR projects and strengthening NGOs and DPOs through capacity-building measures.
CBR continues to be a relevant and appropriate strategy and it not only helps to improve the well-being of people with disabilities but everyone in a community.
CBR relies heavily on people’s initiatives and determination to pursue development. The motivation to do this will be largely determined by the level of confidence, ability, and amount of experience in doing things by themselves.
We have been supporting various NGOs since 2003 and enabled many organisations to promote CBR projects more independently and influenced the stakeholders to mainstream disability into their ongoing development projects. Now, we are working with 12 NGOs in the States of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
Training Programs
A major thrust of ODA is building the capacity of NGO workers and DPO leaders to promote quality service among persons with disabilities. To facilitate this, we organize various training programs for community workers, project middle level functionaries and DPO leaders.
The training programs are tailor-made to meet individual learning needs and project goals. The duration of the courses varies and the sessions are conducted by inviting qualified faculties.
So far, we have trained 850 CBR workers, 375 development workers, 85 project coordinators and around 2500 DPO leaders. It helped many organisations to promote CBR projects in the region more independently.
Psychosocial Intervention for the Ockhi cyclone disaster victims
Ockhi ‘very severe cyclonic storm’, crossed the Kanyakumari coast on Nov 29, 2017. More than 218 fatalities were caused by Ockhi, and it left at least 551 people, mainly fishermen, missing. Among them, 145 persons died from 8 villages of the Venad coast in the western strip of Kanyakumari district. More than 600 survivors reached the shore with disabling conditions and mental health issues.
Among these people though many of them recovered due to the resilience of human nature, there were 186 persons found victims of psychological disorders such as depression, generalized anxiety, non-specific distress and posttraumatic stress disorder which can last for days, years or an entire lifetime. Besides, the women, girls and children are mostly affected psychologically in the families. Many children who lost their sole breadwinner have left with no hope of education, as they lost their earning member/s and fishing vessels.
We initiated a psychosocial intervention in the area with a team of 10 psychiatric counsellors, two social workers and 15 community volunteers for a period of two years. The counselling, medical, socio-economic and relief measures helped around 135 persons to cope with life and to lead a normal life.
Covid 19 Relief Measures
In our project area, many children with disabilities, especially those with moderate or severe impairment, are out of school because of poverty, physical and attitudinal barriers. Lack of adequate education remains the key risk factor for poverty and exclusion for all children, both with and without disabilities.
We support families to invest in children and tailor the interventions, especially of children with disabilities to their individual educational needs. Our workers build rapport with the children and maintain links between the home, community and schools to create a disabled-friendly learning environment in the local schools.
The support required for special education, assistive devices, school fees and guidance for higher education is taken into consideration for children with disabilities and other children having poor family support.