SVYM has a great partnership with Sneha Kiran of the Mysore
Spastic Society, which is a comprehensive school with rehabilitation services
for those with Cerebral Palsy (CP). While the school was started by parents of
children with Cerebral Palsy, they now have both children and adults enrolled.
Most of them have CP, but there are also some with other special needs that
keep them from schools with able-bodied children. Sneha Kiran is a place where
the doors are open to anyone, and it is filled with some of the most
compassionate and hardworking people I have ever had the pleasure to meet in my
entire life. During my six weeks there, I examined the emotional intelligence
and social quotient of children with CP through a set of informal assessments
and activities, as well as volunteered in the classrooms wherever I was needed.
Often an overlooked part of treating CP patients, the emotions and social
skills that we possess as able-bodied/able-minded individuals are not always as
easily grasped by those with CP. This makes it an even more important area to
research and move forward in.
While I tried to be as prepared as I could possibly be before
leaving for India, there was nothing that could have completely readied me for
everything I would experience. Volunteering at Sneha Kiran was the first time
in my life where I woke up every day excited to go to work and came home at the
end of the day feeling exhausted but wholly fulfilled. Everyone at that school
truly wants to be there. It was amazing to watch the able-bodied children push
those in wheelchairs around between classes, and those who could communicate
verbally speak for those who could not. I learned more about love and joy
during my two months in India than I have in my twenty-two years or so of life.
I also had incredible experiences outside of Sneha Kiran, a few notable ones being when we visited a primary health center and got to visit the GH students at Kenchenahalli for a weekend. I will be forever grateful to SVYM, Sneha Kiran, and the Cornell Global Health Program for this life-changing summer, and I absolutely encourage all Global Health and pre-medical students to engage in this experience or one like it. There are some things that you will never truly grasp about a culture so different from your own unless you are able to see it with your own eyes. The people in Mysore will stay with me forever no matter where I am, and I will never stop being grateful for everything I learned in those eight short weeks.
Working on my project at Sneha Kiran Spastic Society!
