Shillong, Dec. 21: The ministry of social justice and empowerment will set up an extension centre of the National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Multiple Disabilities (NIEPMD) in each state of the northeastern region, including Sikkim, that will serve as a resource centre for empowering people with multiple disabilities and enable them to cope with life.

The institute was established in 2005 at Muttukadu, Chennai, in Tamil Nadu under the department of disability affairs ministry of social justice and empowerment to serve as a national resource centre for empowerment of persons with multiple disabilities (persons with two or more disabilities).

The institute has received a national award for best accessible website for persons with disability in 2011 and outstanding work in creation of barrier-free environment for such persons in 2012.

The institute serves as a national resource centre for empowerment of persons with many disabilities which include low vision, blindness, locomotor disability, hearing impairment and mental illness among others.

The proposed extension centres in all the eight states of the Northeast will be established by the institute which is now in the process of signing a memorandum of understanding with various NGOs based in the eight states.

During a recent press tour to Tamil Nadu organised by the Press Information Bureau, journalists from Meghalaya visited the institute and interacted with students from the Northeast - who are pursuing different diploma courses on multiple disabilities - as well as with officials of the institute.

At present, at least eight students from the Northeast are pursuing various courses at NIEPMD, Tamil Nadu, who after completing the course would serve in their respective states to help the disabled.

The courses offered at NIEPMD include diploma in special education (cerebral palsy), diploma in special education (deaf and blind), diploma in special education (autism spectrum disorder), BEd-special education (multiple disabilities), post-graduate diploma in developmental therapy: multiple disabilities (physical and neurological), post-graduate diploma in early intervention, MPhil (clinical psychology) among other courses.

The institute's director, Dr Neeradha Chandramohan, said so far it has signed an MoU only with an NGO from Tripura.

She said the institute is in the process of signing MoUs with other NGOs from Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Sikkim for setting up the extension centres of the institute.

'The partner NGOs will provide the space and the institute will provide professionals like physiotherapists, special educators, psychologists and therapists dealing with multiple disabilities in the extension centres,' Chandramohan said.

The institute will also appoint eight co-ordinators, one for each extension centre.

The proposed setting up of the extension centres in all states in the Northeast with financial assistance from the Centre will be of great help as the states in the region are yet to have full-fledged centres to deal with persons with multiple disabilities.

From Meghalaya, Bethany Society will sign the MoU with the institute to start the extension centre in Shillong while Shishu Sarothi, an NGO from Assam, will ink the MoU to start the extension centre in Guwahati.

The institute and the NGOs will work together to undertake development of human resources for management, training rehabilitation, education, employment and social development of persons with multiple disabilities, strategies for social rehabilitation and to meet the needs of diverse groups of people with multiple disabilities, undertake services and outreach programmes for the persons with multiple disabilities.

Chandramohan said the NIEPMD would also launch a sensitisation programme across the states in the Northeast for two days in order to create awareness on proper rehabilitation of persons with disability. Around 1,500 beneficiaries are expected to take part in the programmes.

According to students from the Northeast, the parents should be with their wards when they are sent to special schools as it will ease the distress of the disabled.

Joycelin Sumer who is from Meghalaya and was a teacher at Bethany Society said that at NIEPMD, the parents of the disabled are always with their wards unlike in Meghalaya.

'The children in our state are left to the care of Bethany Society and the teachers find it difficult to deal with the disabled in the absence of the parents,' Sumer, who is pursuing her first year in Autism Spectrum Disorder course, said.