http://www.dawn.com/weekly/review/review4.htm
By Maisoon Hussein
Robina Inam has a rare quality. Her mission -to teach and train the mentally handicapped to lead as normal a life as possible; to dress by themselves, to work, to earn and perhaps, even to marry - was termed impossible by co-professionals in her field. But she has done it. Since 1992, over 140 boys and girls trained in her institution have emerged rehabilitated.
A greater challenge is working despite the epileptic fits, once 24 a day, now four sometimes, that she suffers from after an accident in 1997 that damaged a nerve in her head. What’s more, the spreading tumor - once in her thigh bone, then in her hip joint, so that she needed a bone graft, then in the pelvis area, which meant a hysterectomy and now in her vertebra - tends to sap her energy.But Robina Inam works on.
As head of the Karachi Vocational Training Centre (KVTC), where 160 mentally challenged students are admitted, she is at her desk, everyday, answering calls, monitoringdaily activities, lecturing, meeting parents and seeing to countless other activities that such an institution calls for.
“My doctors can’t understand how I carry on, but I do,” she says. For Robina, this is a labour of love and “there is never a dull moment.” Meeting her, one can never guess what she is going through; she smiles readily and looks calm and collected. She admits that the fits when they come, leave her weak and disoriented. On such days she comes late to the centre or not at all. But she carries on.
The centre, the only one of its kind in the country, is imparting some one hundred skills to the mentally challenged boys and girls here. The students, admitted only after tests and observation spread over 10 days, are those on the borderline. “We do take autistic children and those suffering from cerebral palsy - but not severe cases.”
Each learns the skills that matches his mental level. The brighter children can learn basic carpentry, block printing, tailoring, zari work and bead work. “Their first brush with the real world is in Mr Burger, our training institute, because its director is also our board member. Here they do different jobs, step by step, according to their ability:picking up plates, cleaning, washing plates, frying chips, serving drinks. They are all paid for their work, and this makes them very happy. After eight months or so here, they leave to work elsewhere.”
Most employers are reluctant to hire someone a little different. “We have to convince them of all that the boy can do - and can’t.” Boys have been hired, mostly as sales assistants, while girls are working as assistant teachers in Montessori schools and in beauty parlours."
KVTC regularly monitors those employed to see how they are gettingon. And if employers have any problems, they lodge their complaint with KVTC which takes responsibility and not the parents. “One lady customer’s complaint was, for instance, that the handicapped boy serving her, smiled too much. We tried to explain to the employer that this was nothing to be upset about but when she complained again, we had no choice but to find work for him elsewhere.”
There are several boys and girls who, because of their looks and behaviour, would be unacceptable generally andthere is place for them in KVTC itself. “Two students are coaching the children in special Olympics. Ten are working here as receptionists; we also have assistant teachers and kitchen managers.”
Robina also runs a “sheltered workshop” in KVTC where boys and girls clean and pack lentils and rice, for which they are paid. She also hopes to convince industrialists to allow the students here to do simple, repetitive piecework like packing or fixing nuts and bolts of curtain railings, etc to earn some money.
Robina has not limited her work simply to KVTC. She and her colleagues also reach out to parents of the handicapped in deprived areas like Lyari, Azam Basti, Neelam Colony, North Karachi, Defence, Cantt Station area and Bihar colony. “We try to help parents to cope with their child.” Altogether they are in touch with about 150 such families.
At times, they come across parents who cannot accept their disabled child. “They tie and beat them with belts and hockey sticks. Some burn their skin with cigarette ends. Some children are so tortured that they run away, only to be abused by street boys. Those who are well off, tend to be abused by servants.”
Students of KVTC who experience problems at home are encouraged to talk and share their feelings. “We then call parents to our centre and ask them to listen. They are taken aback at what their child has gone through.” The parent counseling has positive results. These problems occur because there is little acceptance of the mentally disabled in our society. “That’s really wrong. You never know what life can do to you. I never imagined that I could suffer from epilepsy.”
Robina herself once had problems coping. This was after her marriage to psychiatrist, Dr Inamul Rehman, in 1972, when she stayed at the hospital for the mentally ill. “I was so scared of their strange behaviour that I slept with my overcoat on so that I could dash out of the hospital at the first sign of trouble.” Then her husband tried to wean her out of this dread. He would leave her alone in the ward with the patients and nurses. Gradually, she overcame her fear and even joined evening classes in the UK, training in vocational and industrial therapy of the mentally handicapped.“I think I am the only industrial therapist in Pakistan. I haven’t met anyone else yet,” she says.
She made a modest beginning in Karachi, training the handicapped in the flat. When in the first year she managed to rehabilitate two students, applications began to pour in. The DHA authorities, whom she approached for help, kindly gave her a building for use. “Nine years later, we were short of space again and forced to hold classes in the corridor. The DHA authorities have given us another adjoining building.”
Robina has a waiting list of 800. And this list is likely to increase sharply once the hostel she has o mind, materializes. “There are many mentally ill who are abandoned or have nobody to look after them. I want something for them.”
However, before this, she needs hospital beds, bed sheets, curtains and other essentials. Her problem is shortage of funds, but it doesn’t really worry her. “I know God will help me. I have been through many crises - like the month when we had no money to pay the teachers salaries -but somebody always comes to the rescue.”
The shortage of funds is chiefly because more than half of the students at KVTC are partly or fully on Zakat. Her deep faith is reflected well in a saying on her desk, “If you just take a step by faith to do the right thing, then God will do the rest - the things you can’t do”. This is what helps Robina to work and achieve so much, against all odds.