SGCP- The end

So our time as volunteers in Nepal has come to an end! The past few weeks have been a whirlwind and I have no idea of how time has passed since we returned from Thailand.

As I thought over our time here the other day, I realised that we have gone through various stages in our approach to speech therapy at the centre. First, we were in the classrooms trying to promote communication in lessons and advising on positioning and technique for feeding the children. After a while we met the Medha, the Nepali speech and language therapist, and spent some time in individual sessions with her and the rest of the time attempting individual sessions with our phrasebook, a bag of plastic fruit and a candle. This was quite a short-lived phase, as we often found that the children’s Nepali language was better than our own! So finally we settled on a more consultative model, which I think is the most effective thing we could have done given the circumstances.

We went out on home visits with a new home visitor, who as well as becoming a great friend, learned a lot about speech and language development and some basic approaches to therapy on the job. We would make recommendations and explain why we did what we did, and she would pass on the information to the parents. It was great to hear her suggesting approaches for the children that were a result of what we had told her. We also spent a few sessions with the physiotherapists in the outpatients centre with children they felt were in need of speech and language therapy. Again, it was so rewarding to see them following out what we had recommended, and coming up with new ideas for other children. I feel that this area will be where we have had the biggest and most lasting impact within the charity.

In addition to direct therapy and advice, we have also made a lot of resources for the speech and language therapy ‘department’ which was all but non-existent when we arrived. We have bought books and toys for sensory stories; we have made three therapy games; we have bought and made picture cards to be used for any number of activities, and we’ve made a communication book for a girl who needed one. I hope that these continue to be used after we’ve left. There have been a number of occasions where I’ve suggested that we do something or make something and have been told it’s already been done before by other volunteers, but nobody has used it or thought to tell us it existed. Nobody even thought to tell us there was a speech and language therapist in the centre, we found her by accident! But since we did find her and she too has become a very close friend, maybe there’s hope this time.