Spotlight On: CHARM

A key objective of HART’s 2019 visit to Myanmar was to explore the possibility of launching a project that will provide education and training for Community Health Workers’ (CHWs) to help people with disabilities in Myanmar. The project’s title is CHARM – Community, Hope and Rehabilitation in Myanmar.

To enable a cross-fertilisation of ideas, HART introduced Vardan Tadevosyan, founder and director of the Lady Cox Rehabilitation Centre in Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) to a series of in-country partners and facilitated a meeting with Gevorg Sargysyan, head of the World Bank for Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. Additionally, Vardan and the team met with Stephan Sakalian, head of the ICRC in Myanmar.

People in Myanmar living with disabilities have a generally poor and sometimes tragically low quality of life. Understanding of their needs is poorly developed, and there are few facilities to help them to integrate into the community. Due to a lack of training, teachers frequently exclude disabled children from school. Adults with disabilities often suffer stigma and discrimination, and remain out of sight at home, where they lack social inclusion and meaningful opportunities to contribute economically.

Meanwhile, the number of people in Myanmar who are trained in the field of physiotherapy and occupational therapy is very low compared to neighbouring countries. Without the input of foreign professionals, it is consequently difficult, if not impossible, to initiate programmes which could rectify these serious problems. The aim of the CHARM project is to provide training for CHW’s from remote areas in basic treatment and rehabilitation for people with disabilities. Through enhancing mobility, preventing and healing pressure sores and changing attitudes and behaviours in the wider community, the project will create greater independence and a better quality of life for people with disabilities. As stigma is reduced, those with disabilities will gain increased self-esteem and CHW’s can begin to integrate disabled children into schools.

HART has worked for more than a decade in Myanmar with partners who are firmly
community-based and have extensive outreach programmes. This enables collaboration
with colleagues in whom HART has confidence and makes it possible to reach the people
in need who live in the most remote communities.

If you wish to find out more about CHARM click here: https://www.hart-uk.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Burma-Visit-Report-2019.pdf

To support CHARM, you can donate to HART here: https://www.hart-uk.org/donate/