Light for the World (LFTW), Austria is one of the donor agencies of Caritas India supporting Caritas India Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programmes in the northeast region. The northeast region partners’ meeting of LFTW was organized at Bosco Reach Out, Guwahati on August 8-9, 2022. The objective was to facilitate an exchange on their partners’ achievements, challenges and innovative practices. The opportunity was also used to discuss the sustainability of the programmes once LFTW phases out from March 2024. Besides Caritas India, other organizations that participated in the two-day meeting included Bethany Society, Shishu Saroti, Bosco Reach Out, Franciscan Clarist Society, Ferrando Centre and Montfort Institutions. Each of the above organizations except Ferrando and Montfort made their presentations as they were invited for a session on inclusive education only.

“No matter how good I felt while reading the reports in the past, there was nothing like seeing directly and interacting with the community. The emotions and the humanity in the community cannot simply be explained in words,” said Ms. Sigrid Baldinger, the Regional Coordinator of the northeast region, Light for the World Austria after her field visit.

Fr. (Dr.) Jolly Puthenpura, Assistant Executive Director of Caritas India participated in the two-day meet sharing his perceptions on various issues. He opined that formation of collectives and empowering them to lead to the sustainability of our efforts. He also observed that disability being an emotional issue raising local resources to support them should not be a big issue. 

Mr K Kempaiah, Lead- Impact CBR (Consultant) made a presentation on the achievements, challenges, and innovative practices in the CBR programmes supported by LFTW. The regional team members Mr. Francis and Ms. Netrasikha also participated actively sharing their own experiences and perspectives.

There was an online presentation on “Safeguarding and anti-corruption” by Ms. Amanda Ramos and Ms. Sigrid with the objective of understanding the importance of respective policies and implementing complaints mechanisms.

There was a brainstorming session on how the organizations have planned their own sustainability in view of the phasing out of LFTW from 2024. Strategies of promoting community participation in our programmes and networking/collaboration with all the organizations and stakeholders were discussed in detail.

As part of the meeting, an institutional visit was organized to Shishu Saroti – a NGO supported by LFTW to see the early intervention and rehabilitation services offered by the institute.

A special online presentation was made by Mr. Milton of OREBACOM on “Inclusive playgroups – a best practice example from Mozambique.” The objective was to understand the importance of early intervention and play-based learning for children with and without disabilities.

LFTW was supporting inclusive education of children with disabilities along with other international agencies like CBM and Liliane Fonds in the region. This programme was called Regional Action on Inclusive and Special Education (RAISE). CI CBR had collaborated with some of the RAISE partners in the past to implement CBR programmes through them. Bethany Society and Shishu Saroti made their presentations on the status of promoting inclusive education through their respective organizations. This programme has been phased out and an external evaluation of the programme was also conducted. The highlights of the evaluation of the RAISE programme were also shared in the meeting. CI CBR shared their experiences of promoting inclusive education as part of the CBR programmes and how they worked with some of the RAISE partners to promote CBR and IE.

As part of their phasing out, they are collecting data through an evaluation process with the help of “INCLUDOVATE – Innovate for Inclusion” an organization based in Italy. Through this process, they are trying to gather the impact or the major outcomes of their interventions in the northeast region and publish the findings as a learning document. This will be shared with all the NGO partners and other international funding agencies. The document will be in the public domain once it is ready. They would also guide the NGOs from India on preparing good proposals and put in a word (give references) to the international funding agencies and Foundations as they know them.

In the concluding sessions, the participants listed out their best learnings and takeaways from the two days deliberations. The two-day regional meet came to an end by proposing a vote of thanks by Fr. Jayaprakash, the Director of Bosco Reach Out who hosted the meeting.