Your differently abled relative wants to be useful citizen of the society. Do not deprive him of this right.  Without a guiding hand, they would remain in the four corners of your house.  They can be self-sufficient when giving the chance.

The Rotary Club of Hundred Islands would launch a project for the blind and for the crippled.  Initial step was to get a list of blind children and list of crippled children from the City Social Welfare and Development Office for the 39 barangays of the City of Alaminos. 

The list of blind children was forwarded to the Northern Luzon Association for the Blind (NLAB) School in Baguio City.  NLAB School usually scouts for blind children all over Northern Luzon to become their student.  The student does not have to pay any tuition fees and board and lodging expenses.  It is the NLAB which has benefactors to answer all the needs of their student.  The objective of the NLAB is to make the blind child ready to be returned to the mainstream.  When the blind student leaves the NLAB, he is ready to go on to secondary education and later on to a vocational course or a bachelor degree.

Out of the twelve (12) in the list, John Paul Valdez from Lucap qualified.  There is another one in the list but he is not of school age yet.  He has to wait another year before he could be brought to the NLAB because they only admit elementary school age scholars.

The parents of John Paul Valdez already accepted the invitation of NLAB for him to attend school.  He together with his parents already went to NLAB for initial evaluation.  It will be for the first time that NLAB will take in a blind deaf-mute as a student.

Other than helping the NLAB scout for prospective students, the Rotary Club of Hundred Islands answers for the fare of the student and his parents in going to Baguio for initial evaluation and for regular school vacations.  The Hundred Islands Rotary has to answer for the fare of John Paul and his parents because the family can not afford to bring him to NLAB.  His father is his full time caregiver and his mother sells vegetables in the market.  The Hundred Islands Rotary would undertake to shoulder the fare of an NLAB student of the same circumstances.

In terms of the crippled children, the Hundred Islands Rotary would avail of the free artificial legs offered by the Rotary District Project of Past District Governor Lynne Abanilla, Rotary International District 3820, which has set up a division in the Philippine General Hospital for examinations, testing, and physical therapy of prosthetics beneficiaries.  The Hundred Islands Rotary has coordinated with the City Social Welfare and Development Office and is in the process of waiting for the medical history of the prospective prosthetics beneficiary which will be sent to PGH thru PDG Lynne Abanilla.

This article was published in the Breadbasket of the ROTI in its Report of Members section.
The url of the article is http://www.roti.org/news/r0107.htm