An Innovative Way to Help Children with Disabilities

When a child is born with disabilities, it demands special care and attention from its parents, oftentimes resulting into extra financial burden and social stigma. No matter how much educated they are, there are very few Bangladeshi parents who appear as mentally ready to deal with a specially-abled child.

To help these neglected and needy children, UHCD-United Help for Children with Disabilities, a non-profit working for the health of disabled children, was born. Registered in New York in the United States, the UHCD Foundation is operating in Bangladesh for the past few years.

Founded by Khaled M Shahriar and Dr Mahmuda Sawgat, a couple living in the US, the idea for the Foundation came from their son, Shafi Mahmud, who at a family event realised the necessity to help disabled children at a very early age.

The Foundation operates in Bangladesh through a Trust, which is led by Dr MR Rahman Razib, a child specialist at Kurmitola General Hospital in Dhaka. Apart from the founders and the Trust, the UHCD Foundation also has an executive board, an advisory board, and a dedicated team all working with the mission to make the lives of disabled children a little better.

The Foundation has various ongoing projects at this moment, including- Crisis Response and Relief, Awareness and Sensitisation, Global Collaboration, Research and Innovation, Empowerment Through Employment, Financial Assistance, Advocacy for Inclusivity, Educational Opportunities, Accessible Healthcare, Rehabilitation, Charitable Programmes, Parental Consultation etc.

Through these projects, the Foundation aims to educate the parents on how to take care of a disabled child, provide urgent medical and financial assistance to those children in need, conducting research and incorporate global best practices to make the services provided by the Foundation cutting-edge and effective, creating jobs for skilled individuals and rehabilitating specially-abled children into the society’s mainstream.

The UHCD Foundation has a unique logo, which shows an elderly person extending her helping hand to a young child, indicating that it is always the duty and responsibility of the grown-ups to help and care for the needy children.

The vision and mission of the Foundation state that its goal is not only to provide financial assistance but making modern treatment facilities available for those in need, while also educating the parents on how to deal with specially-abled children.

In the founder’s note, Khaled M Shahriar and Dr Mahmuda Sawgat said, “Together we can begin this journey with our united efforts to extend our helping hands to the welfare of these children. Therefore, upon forming the foundation, participation of interested and like-minded people like you who are willing to participate in this mission with whichever capacity you can engage herein would be greatly appreciated.”

Shafi Mahmud, son of Khaled and Mahmuda and brainchild of the Foundation, said, “I find immense joy in delivering motivational speeches to the amazing parents and children enrolled with UHCD, sharing stories of resilience and hope that connect us all. This mission resonates deeply with me, and I am committed to fostering a supportive community where every child can thrive.”

The uhcd.org website has a software attached to it which tracks the disabled children by age, region and diagnosis. The data are collected with the consent of the parents and in order to make easily-accessible medical data available for further procedures.

This feature makes UHCD Foundation a one-of-its-kind facility, with technological innovations being used to solve one of the most pressing challenges of the world nowadays, which is public health.

There are three ways in which a person can engage with UHCD Foundation- through donation, through becoming a volunteer or through sponsorships. The UHCD Foundation, which is a non-profit, is entirely run by public contributions, which makes its cause much more philanthropic.

Due to a lack of proper treatment and physical and mental support, many specially-abled children in Bangladesh never get the opportunity to develop their capacities and remain handicapped for the rest of their lives. To eradicate this problem, Bangladeshi parents need to be aware so that they do not see their special children as burden, rather individuals who need special attention and care.

The financial abilities of the affected parents need to be strengthened too, so that the cost needed for special care can be borne by them. Most importantly, proper treatment options need to be made available in every corner of the country so that those seeking help do not return empty-handed.

Organisations like UHCD Foundation are working for these purposes.

The writer is a Dhaka-based journalist. He can be reached at [email protected]