Featured programme - Earthquake Rehabilitation
Sichuan:from individual recovery to community rehabilitation
Rehabilitation does not stop with the release of the treated survivors from hospital. Quite the contrary: for the hundreds of thousands of survivors injured in the fatal Wenchuan earthquake on 12 May, 2008, it was just the beginning of a long road back to their home and community life.
More than 10,000 injured survivors received hospital-based treatment in Sichuan and other provinces after the quake. As of May 2010, there were still some 5,600 treated survivors who required various kinds of rehabilitation. We believe that rehabilitation is not only a personal matter of coping but also about how the community prepares itself to welcome them as equal members. This is the conviction behind two injury-related projects, run by the Hong Kong Workers’ Health Centre (HKWHC) and Handicap International (HI) respectively. [so is PCD working with both?]
Tang Yonghong is one of 150 injured survivors receiving occupational and social rehabilitation by HKWHC, which has been working with Chengdu Hospital No. 2 and Guangdong Work Injury Rehabilitation Centre since November 2008. HKWHC applies a case management model of holistic rehabilitation that includes individual counseling, peer support, training in self-care skills, home modification, community activities and livelihood assistance. Yonghong, suffering from spinal cord injury, is now raising pigs as her source of income in her new home in Mianzhu .
To benefit more survivors, our partnership is being extended. In the second phase, we will explore further possibilities of occupational rehabilitation in rural settings, as much as possible using the principles of eco-agriculture. We hope that the survivors will be able to re-connect themselves with the soil and nature not only for their livelihoods, but also for a positive inner self.
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