Psychologist and prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s daughter Saima Hossain Putul on Saturday called upon parents of special kids to be brave in their day to day fight for their children.
‘Don’t demean yourself, don’t demean your children,’ she said as she tried to infuse in them strength to manage their kids in a society, which is mostly unaware of the fact of disabilities and their need.
‘We always have to think first we are human and then we have a disability. All of us have some kind of disabilities,’ she said, adding she always tries to change the general perception where ‘disability becomes only identity of a person’.
‘We have to think a person has a disability, but he or she is not disabled… we have to think how we can help them to become an able person so that they can live like others’.
A US-licensed psychologist and a global advocate for the US-based research organisation ‘Autism Speaks’, Putul brought the disability issue to the forefront in Bangladesh in July 2011 when she organised first autism meet in South Asia in Dhaka. Sonia Gandhi, president of India’s ruling Congress party took part in the event among other global leaders.
As the conference generated tremendous response in Bangladesh, parents of autistic children came forward and established a group named ‘Parents Forum for Differently Able’ that organised the reunion.
Sajida Rahman Danny, President of the Forum, said it all began after the conference. ‘Now we can speak out and go out with our special kids…no one thinks they are like a creature of a zoo,’ she said.
Putul said she considered herself ‘fortunate’ and lauded the fact that ‘our parents are not ashamed of their children with disabilities’.
‘I have not seen anywhere such a big gathering with 700 or 800 parents coming together with their kids and working for them,’ the global advocate said.
She vowed to stand by them always and encouraged them to keep in touch with her. She also received written questions from parents, which she would reply shortly.
Though her appearance before the parents, for whom she works, came just months before the upcoming general elections, like her earlier speech, she did not utter any word for her mother’s party and the elections.
But Bangladesh’s political culture has made people sceptical about whether the issue would see any progress if the Sheikh Hasina government does not return to power and her archrival BNP takes over.
Putul earlier in an interview told bdnews24.com that, ‘It should not be hindered’.
‘It’s not a political issue. The government mechanism will work (and) it’s their responsibility to carry out the programmes,’ last year she said in Doha referring to bureaucrats.
However, vice-chancellor of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Prof Pran Gopal Datta called upon all to vote for Sheikh Hasina.
‘You (parents) are worried about your children’s future….what will happen to them when you’ll be not in the world….if the current government is re-elected, we will get the solution,’ he said amid applaud from the parents.
Autism appears in the first three years of life, and affects the brain’s normal development of social and communication skills.
Those who suffer cannot pick up self-care tasks – dressing, self-feeding, using toilet and others – by watching and imitating. They do not make eye-to-eye contact and have single-track thought process.
But due to lack of trained manpower, many countries particularly developing ones miss the early diagnosis aggravating their sufferings.
Many countries mostly South Asian countries even do not know the extent of the disorder. However, studies showed in US one in every 88 children was being detected as autism.
Due to Bangladesh’s initiative, United Nations accepted a resolution on autism and World Health Organisation’s Executive Board ‘unanimously’ accepted an autism resolution Bangladesh placed in Geneva in May.
-With New Age input
