Nirmala Sadan is a home for the persons with multiple handicapped / bedridden. This home is situated in Edakulathur Village, 18 Kilometers away from Thrissur Town. The home is surrounded by different casts of people mainly Hindus. The Parish church is near by the institute. There is a convent belongs to Holy Cross sisters in this parish.

Heavenly Patron:

The heavenly Patron of the home is Mother Mary Immaculate and fest is on December 8th.

Strength:

At present there are 12 incurable children and 10 aged women. There are 8 sisters and our candidates are rendering their service in this home.

Activity Details

This home is for the persons with multiple handicap and totally bedridden. They are totally depend on others for their daily needs such as, feeding, bathing, dressing, cleaning etc, . The house is run by the Sisters who belong to Society of Nirmala Dasi Sisters. The main source of income is local donations in money and kind.

The inmates those who are having sense of enjoyment, they are allowed to watch Television there will be cultural programme arranged by the staff once in a week. A Picnic is scheduled once in a year.

History of the Home

Society took initiation to start a nursery school in the convent building. The parishioners are happy and they welcomed the society with whole hearted co-operation. After the family visits and other services, the sisters experienced need for a home for the bed ridden people. Most of the local people are from lower strata and they find their lively hood by daily wages. As we felt the need of the home to look after the bedridden people by the society, we started the home. Considering the need we accepted we start a home for the people with multiple handicap particularly bedridden persons.

Our Mission

At present, there are 28 children who are totally bedridden (14 boys and 14 girls) admitted in the home.Young children with multiple disabilities/cerebral palsy have unique needs and challenges. Impairments may occur in cognition, motor, and sensory functions and occur in combination with each other. Many of these young children struggle to communicate their wants and needs, to freely move their body to access and engage their world, and to learn abstract concepts and ideas. In addition, however, these young children are a widely heterogeneous group in terms of their characteristics, capabilities, and learning needs.

We are given total support for their activities of daily living by 10 Sisters and 4 Ayahs. They have to be helped for feeding, dressing, toileting and grooming. For giving them the best and appropriate training included a time scheduled programme which includes:- medical, physical, learning, and social emotional needs.

Medical Needs:- Young children with multiple disabilities often have chronic health needs that may require substantial effort to help improve their health. Two full time nurse and one part time doctor render their services for the residents.

Personal Skill Development Programme:-  As with all young children, the learning outcomes for young children with multiple disabilities are delayed. To achieve these outcomes, professionals must implement additional supports to provide for a meaningful and individualized curriculum within the context of fully inclusive and natural environments. The ADL (Activities of Daily Living) is the important training given to the residents. Eating, dressing, bathing and grooming are done with the help of trained staff. Very often their dress will be wet because of their inability to control their toilet needs. Each of their developmental activities is supervised by the staff.

Therapies:-  Therapies have a great role in the lives of these children.

Ø Physiotherapy: - Young children with multiple disabilities often exhibit motor development delays, which can result in difficulties with mobility, sitting, and standing. Physiotherapy is an important need of these children. A part time physiotherapist is appointed for giving them physiotherapy. There is improvement in children by the regular exercises given by therapist.

Ø Speech Therapy:-  Effective communication is as high need area, for young children who have multiple disabilities. Communication intervention could be enhanced through the simultaneous use of unaided systems. The use of natural gestures and nonspeech vocalizations has the practical advantage, in that they do not require access to equipment or other media. Thus they can communicate with their caregivers through facial expressions, natural gestures, and vocalizations long before producing their first words. There is a trained speech therapist who is a part time worker to impart training in speech and language.

Ø Vocational training is also given to the children.  The regular training given is stitching, drawing and painting, tablet cover making and making pearl garlands.

Ø Behaviour Modification Therapy: - A psychologist is appointed as part time basis and she solves their psychological problems by counseling and behavior modification therapy. It helps the children to reduce their temper tantrums and other behavior problems.

Achievements:- Physical, Mental and Social achievements are noticed through the training given in our center. Their mental age improved a lot through Individual training and socialization; relaxed rigid states of their muscles and joints by the physio-therapy given; improved their receptive and expressive language through speech therapy and the individual care given by the specialized staff.

Challenges:- Since children with multiple disabilities/cerebral palsy have unique needs and challenges, impairments may occur in cognition, motor, and sensory functions and may occur in combination with each other. The main difficulties in their training is the lack/slow improvements and lack of dedicated persons in this field to serve in this mission. Financial challenges are also faced by the management.

Previous Administrators:

1999-2001

Sr. Lilly Nareparembil

2001-2003 Sr. Kochuthressia Muttamthottil

2003-2005 Sr. Thressiamma Chowallur

2005-2008 Sr. Alice Pazheveettil

2008-2014 Sr. Sheeba Thekkumpuram

2014-2017 Sr. Shali Thadathil

2017-2020 Sr. Elsy Chazhoor

2020-2021 Sr. Lovely Kattumattom

2021 Sr. Elsy Illickal