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    "result": {"pageContext":{"language":"en","pathURL":"pintuben-meda","isDefaultLanguage":true,"storyData":{"Name":"Pintuben Meda","Alt_Photos":null,"Alt_Text_Photo1":"Pintuben Meda (19) stands in a shady grove, in the midst of guava trees, next to a bush with red inflorescence. She wears crimson pants and a mustard-coloured chunky cotton cardigan with zippered side-pockets, a zip-up front, and a hoodie. The hoodie is pushed back, revealing black spiky hair. She smiles as she holds the stem of a spikelet of red flowers.","Alt_Text_Photo2":"Pintu sits cross-legged on a mattress on an iron bedstead painted yellow. The room is a dormitory with two rows of similar cots lining the length of the two facing peach-coloured walls. The cots are sunny yellow, post-box red, leaf-green, and ash-grey. Each mattress is covered with a bedsheet in broad alternating bands of white and bluish-grey. Pintu wears a bluish-green T-shirt and loose peach-coloured pants. Her right forearm rests on her right thigh. Holding a black marker-pen in her left hand, she is shading an outline drawn on a white sheet of paper.","Alt_Text_Photo3":"A grinning Pintu stands indoors with arms outstretched horizontally such that her body forms the letter T. She wears a lemon-yellow T-shirt and loose crimson pants. The floor has white tiles. The white painted crisscrossing grills of a rolling shutter gate have been partly drawn to either side of her.","Alt_Text_Photo4":"Pintu, wearing peach pants and blue-green T-shirt, stands in a room with peach-coloured walls. To the right there are two sets of smoky grey lockers side by side. Each set of 12 lockers forms a grid of four by three. Each locker has a piece of white paper stuck to it. On each paper is written the name of the person who uses it.","Alt_Text_Photo5":"Pintu sits next to the hostel warden Sonalben (43) on a metal bench in a paved courtyard. Sonal smiles as she turns to look at Pintu and puts her left arm around Pintu’s shoulder. Pintu grins as she looks straight into the camera. She wears her yellow T-shirt and crimson pants. Her feet are shod in white socks and slippers with magenta straps. Sonalben wears a salmon pink sweater over a bluish-green kameez printed with large white flowers. She wears a dark chocolate salwar and ash-grey slip-on canvas shoes. The ground is made of faded pink zigzag paving stones. In the ivory-white wall in the background there is a wide doorway with rolling shutter grill gate painted white.","Alt_Text_Video":null,"Photo1_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Pintuben/_O2A8995.jpg","Photo2_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Pintuben/_O2A9165.jpg","Photo3_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Pintuben/_O2A9052.jpg","Photo4_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Pintuben/_O2A9214.jpg","Photo5_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Pintuben/_O2A9012.jpg","Name_English":"Pintuben Meda","Language":"en","Disability":["recqkJ0sfTCGlqJlR"],"Gender":"Female","Instagram_Content":"Pintuben Meda (18) from Gujarat is one of eight children born to a daily wage labourer couple. Five of them have disabilities; of them, four including Pintu have microcephaly (born with a disproportionately small head) which affects brain development. Fortunately her parents enrolled her in the Blind Welfare Council residential school in Dahod, where she is discovering her abilities.\n\nEGS readers might recall the story of Yusufi Kapadiya who founded the Blind Welfare Council trust to serve persons with different types of disabilities in the tribal and deprived regions of Dahod and Panchmahal districts. Among the trust’s manifold initiatives are education, rehabilitation, livelihood training towards employment, supporting students in sports activities, and providing assistive devices. \n\nThe school principal Radhika Singh describes the objectives of the school, where she has been working since 2002. Education here goes far beyond textbooks; the focus is on life skills: personal hygiene and self-care; basic communication and social interaction; simple vocational and household tasks; creative expression through art, craft, and movement. Children live on campus full-time, returning to their families only during major festivals and summer vacations. For many poor families, this arrangement provides both relief and hope.\n\nEvery child is guided according to their abilities, not forced into a rigid system, Radhika explains. Pintu struggles with reading, writing, and arithmetic, and her speech is unclear, but she expresses her desires and emotions through actions and movement. One of her most remarkable qualities is her love of dance. She especially enjoys doing the Garba, the traditional folk dance of Gujarat. She enjoys colouring pictures and doing simple craftwork, eagerly participates in household tasks and helps care for younger children. She loves dressing up in colourful clothes, applying henna, wearing bangles, and being appreciated for her appearance.","Quote":"“I enjoy dancing the Garba. I become restless if I don’t have something to do” ","Status":"Published","Video":null,"Website_Content":"Five years ago, while conducting a rural survey of disabled children, staff members of the Blind Welfare Council school in Gujarat came across an unusual family. A daily wage labourer couple had eight children, of whom five had disabilities: one with orthopaedic issues and four with microcephaly (born with a disproportionately small head) which affects brain development. \n \nEGS readers might recall the story of Yusufi Kapadiya who founded the Blind Welfare Council trust to serve persons with (not just Blindness but) different types of disabilities in the tribal and deprived regions of Dahod and Panchmahal districts. Among the trust’s manifold initiatives are education, rehabilitation, livelihood training towards employment, supporting students in sports activities, and providing assistive devices. \n \nThe school staff were checking houses for disabled children whom they could enrol; the residential school houses over 100 children, with a range of disabilities, who receive free board and lodging, education and training. When they reached the Chatrabhai household they found three girls and a boy with microcephaly (an inherited genetic anomaly is one of its possible causes). They counselled the parents who agreed to the enrolment process. But first, the paperwork had to be in order, and only Pintuben Meda had an Aadhar card and the necessary certificates.\n \nBy this stroke of good fortune, Pintuben, now 18-plus, has been blossoming in the Blind Welfare Council school. The school principal Radhika Singh recalls, “Initially we also tried to bring in Pintu’s brother, who has severe microcephaly, but we couldn’t cope for more than a few days.” Even the trained staff couldn’t handle his hyperactivity and violent behaviour towards his attendants. Pintu’s a different story, though.\n \nRadhika, who is also the coordinator of a two-year Diploma in Teacher Training course, describes the objectives of the school, where she has been working since 2002. Education here goes far beyond textbooks; the focus is on life skills: personal hygiene and self-care; basic communication and social interaction; simple vocational and household tasks; creative expression through art, craft, and movement. Children live on campus full-time, returning to their families only during major festivals and summer vacations. For many poor families, this arrangement provides both relief and hope.\n \nEvery child is guided according to their abilities, not forced into a rigid system, Radhika explains. From the beginning, it was clear that Pintu’s strengths lay outside traditional academics. She struggles with reading, writing, and arithmetic, and her speech is unclear, but she expresses her desires and emotions through actions and movement. One of her most remarkable qualities is her love of dance. “When music plays, she comes alive,” says Radhika. “She can dance for hours, in perfect rhythm, without tiring.” She especially enjoys doing the Garba, the traditional folk dance of Gujarat. Her connection to music is instinctive and powerful; though she cannot pronounce the lyrics she hums along to folk songs, especially those sung during weddings.\n \nPintu enjoys colouring pictures and doing simple craftwork. She eagerly participates in household tasks like drying and folding clothes, and cleaning, and helps care for younger children too. “If she is not given work, she becomes restless,” says Radhika. “She likes to be engaged all the time.” She loves dressing up in colourful clothes, applying henna, wearing bangles, and being appreciated and noticed for her appearance.\n \nRadhika’s journey into this space was not immediate or easy. When she was first approached by the director of the Council she hesitated. The idea of working in a rural area did not appeal to her at the time, and even her parents were reluctant to let her go. But the director encouraged her to “visit once just to see”. That one visit changed everything, she says. She found herself drawn to the calm, simplicity, and purpose of the place. For the last 24 years she has been helping build not just an institution, but a nurturing home for children who need specialised care and attention – children like Pintuben Meda.\n","State_name":"Gujarat","Display_Order":257}}},
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