About SAROTHI:

Situated in Nalbari town, on the North bank of the Brahmaputra, ‘SAROTHI – a centre for ability development’ is an initiative of the Society for Human Development to support differently abled people. The organization was established in 2007 by a group of local people who were keen to work for the society. SAROTHI reaches out to children with special needs by providing day-care and home support. Sarothi is also taking the initiative to form a parents group of Children with Special Needs (CWSN) in Nalbari district of Assam.

In Nalbari district there are reportedly about 5500 children with special needs (CWSN) in the age group of 6 to 14 years, and about 1500 children are in the category of hearing impaired out of total CWSN. The day care center at SAROTHI provides support to hearing impaired children along with other CWSN.

The Project with VAANI:

Hearing Impairment being an’ invisible disability’ and the issues concerning deafness being complex, SAROTHI felt that specific and intensive support is required to find out the ability of the hearing impaired children by involving parents and family members. Since no such support was provided in Nalbari earlier, VAANI partnered with SAROTHI to enable them to extend their services to deaf children and their families through a Community Based Rehabilitation Project Ability for four blocks – Tihu Barama, Pub Nalbari, PaschimNalbari and Baksa of the Nalbari district.

Project Aims & Objectives
The key objectives of the project are:

• To identify hearing impaired children in Nalbari District and to develop their abilities through need based intensive support.
• To create awareness about the problems faced by hearing impaired children in the community.
• To motivate and educate the parents, guardians and family members to form parents’ group to support their hearing impaired children.
• To build up the capacity of the volunteers/workers of the district.