Empowering Spinal Cord Injured Persons - ESCIP Trust India

ESCIP Trust India is a start-up non-profit organization in Delhi that provides spinal cord injured quadriplegics with a transitional living program called the ESCIP House. Here, in an accessible home environment run by an able-bodied house manager and a quadriplegic peer mentor, residents work together to break out of the futile state of dependency on their families and caregivers.

A quadriplegic is someone with paralysis in both lower and upper limbs. ESCIP primarily serves a group numbering about 200,000 people in India: quadriplegics with a spinal cord injury between the cervical 5 and 6 vertebrae. This is the most common level of injury in India, and the vast majority are young adults. The injury typically leaves just enough arm and hand function for an individual to achieve functional independence, so that the person can perform complete self care and can participate in activities such as swimming, driving, writing, cooking, and independent traveling; these are all possible with the proper techniques and equipment. However, India lacks the trained therapists, SCI specialized rehab hospitals, and low-cost adaptive devices and active wheelchairs that are available in the US and Europe. C5/6 quadriplegics in India never realize their potential in a formal rehabilitation setting and therefore languish at home, with no expectation of active lives.

In the ESCIP House, a single skilled C5/6 quadriplegic can train three other residents how to live independently. Our ground floor apartment in the Kailash Colony district of Delhi provides immediate access to a market, park, and public transportation. Residents follow personalized schedules that provide daily structure and balance between exercise, skill training, house chores, work/study, and recreation. An occupational therapist visits bi-weekly to work together with the resident peer mentor and house manager to oversee each resident's progress.

The most important aspect of this living arrangement is that residents learn to view themselves as whole people, capable of contributing to the house and neighborhood community. Socializing is key to this transformation, and so the ESCIP House shares its laundry, kitchen, and living room facilities with a small Bed & Breakfast hostel on the floor above that often hosts foreign students and tourists. On the weekends, ESCIP House residents are joined by other Delhi-based quadriplegics for wheelchair rugby practices held in the park nearby. Here, the hostel dwellers and other neighbors often congregate to participate and enjoy.

This experience of transformation and community does not remain solely within the ESCIP House. As residents struggle and progress in this new kind of community, they share their experiences and techniques on YouTube and Facebook. The Internet is an extremely important resource for the disabled in India, as many people who cannot leave their homes use social media to stay connected to the outside world. The posted stories and demonstration videos have followers nationwide and internationally.

As independent residents transition home or to a new living situation, those who remain begin to train new residents, repeating the mentoring cycle. Moving out, however, is the greatest challenge residents face; most cannot return home as few families are able to find accessible housing. ESCIP Trust India is therefore developing resources and partnerships for recommending home modifications and facilitating accessible room shares, as well as connecting residents to employment opportunities.

Our Youtube Channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKm17qzQ07064GP2DLiwmBg/videos