1. Let’s start with your interest to form Alokito Poth and why did you choose this sector to work on?

You see many people around us are suffering. Some suffer from hunger, some are lacking medical facilities. But among all these problems, the most neglected aspect that people do not notice is the special child as their case is very different from the other problems. We see a lot of children begging, being assaulted while seeking food or shelter, but how many of us are there to work towards their betterment and stand by their sides?

As their characteristics and intellect are not as flourished as a regular child, we feel like it is our moral responsibility to look after them. I, alongside a few other philanthropists, decided that as there are very few people involved in this sector, it is our moral responsibility to work towards their development and give them a normal life. So if you ask me I would say that I pursued this solely out of love and compassion.

2. How did the journey begin and what were the challenges you had to face during the formation?

We initially started this back in 2016 by visiting the slums near us. We used to provide slum people with free medical care as they were not able to afford it. While doing these we realized there is a lot to do for the development of this particular sector and we realized the necessity of working for autism. You will be surprised to know that around 7.1% of our entire population is suffering from autism and the number is very significant and there was no organization that worked with this specific portion of people. So we decided to work with this portion of people and officially started in 2019 intending to give them medical treatment and assistance to give them a regular life. The main challenge is treating autism takes time. Suppose you have a headache or physical pain, you take medicine and start feeling well after a while, but when it comes to autism, it takes a long time sometimes 1 to 2 years to heal.

3. Who are the people behind this Institution and how are they involved in it?

I was Squadron Leader of Bangladesh Air Force. After my retirement, I initiated Alokito Poth as the founder president. I served for the nation for more than 13 years in Air Force, now I am standing here for the Autistic Children. After forming that many Professors, Vice Principals, and Associate Professors from various universities joined me to accomplish this huge initiative. I alongside 21 people worked towards establishing this initiative. We got all the legal approval and currently, we have 7 people on the executive board where I act as the president.

4. What type of services and supports are you providing to the children with special needs?

Special children are treated in three ways. Firstly it starts with their assessment. Our Pediatrics and Neurologists firstly assess them and figure out their problems. There are various types of autism-like Cerebral Palsy (CP), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Down Syndrome, Speech Delay, etc. After the assessment, we send them to the therapists who specialized in their relevant fields. We have cases, where children with problems of speaking took speech therapy, took 3 months of therapy sessions, and got back to their regular life. However, there are children with more complications who require multiple therapies. We are currently providing various types of therapies like Speech & Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Physiotherapy in our institution without any costs.

5. How did you manage to get the responses and how were they able to reach out to you during its formation? What was the number of kids back then and what is the current number now?

We officially started our operations in January 2019 and back then we were working with only 21 children. As I mentioned previously, it takes a lot of time to cure a special child, they need continuous treatments. You see, it even takes a year for a child to recover. When we started our initiative with 21 children, we noticed recovery among 14 of them. They were able to do work regularly and overcame their limitations. In 2020 we got over 54 new children as we got a good response from social media pages and mouth-to-mouth reach as we were providing free services which are very costly in general. In 2020 we successfully recovered 31 children, and now this year, we got 93 children who need regular treatments, but our capacity is nearly 42 only. As it takes 1-hour therapy sessions per child, therefore, we cannot give therapy to more than 8 children per day by one therapist. Among the 93 children, 62 are very poor and financially not capable of continuing their treatment at a commercial clinic. So we referred 21 children who are financially capable to go to the commercial institutes and took the responsibilities of 42 among the 62 Special Children for regular treatments. The rest of the 20 Special Children are in the queue so that they can get treatment after when a child gets recovered and discharged.

6. Tell us about the assessment process of the children and how the doctors ensure specific treatments?

Basically, the Speech and Language Therapists and Occupational Therapists are graduated from CRP. Only 20 Students are getting a chance per year. They are graduates and they are highly skilled. They have to work really hard to get this medical graduation. Alongside that, they took suggestions from neuro doctors and pediatric doctors. Combining all these they figure out the problems and suggest an approach for the patients.

7. How do you ensure the cost of all children? What specification do you follow to take responsibility for the children?

Usually from the management level, we feel that a family that earns less than 30,000 takas a month, they are in the low earning sector in our country. For them, it is nearly impossible to continue their child’s treatment after paying for all of their necessities. So we aim to treat the children who live below the poverty line. For example, we found a boy whose mother cooks in a hotel for 5000/- and his father is no more. We found him tied in front of the hotel his mother works at, as he does not act normal like the others which annoy the people. So we mainly focus on the people who are like him. Speaking of our findings, I am currently operating as the Country Director of a foreign company, and I contribute half of my earnings, our General Secretary, who is an Associate Professor, gives all of her earnings to the organization as her husband earns too. So the existing members can provide half of the funding ourselves to run the organization. Besides that our friends and families and other philanthropists also contribute to our initiative and as the number of children is increasing, we recently launched the “Sponsor an autistic child program” where enlightened people like you can come forward and take the responsibility of an autistic child’s education and treatment by donating 15,000/- BDT only. Till now, 9 philanthropists took the responsibility for 9 of our special children. Currently, we are doing campaigns so that we can smoothly conduct the treatments for all 62 children that we have currently.

8. Tell us about the process of how children get proper treatments and how long it actually requires sending them back to their families?

It depends on the disorders they have and what kind of treatment they require. As a charitable foundation, we want to treat and recover the children as soon as possible so that we can treat more autistic children.

9. Who are the people supporting you the most throughout this journey and what type of appreciation are you receiving from society?

All the people who contributed to this initiative have a huge impact on this organization’s success. Many philanthropists are still there, constantly trying to help us grow. Various organizations are also willing to take responsibility for a few of the children which we appreciate. But there are still many obstacles as we still cannot help the children outside Dhaka that much. Many people all over Bangladesh seek help from us as there are very few organizations that provide these services for free. Although we are doing our best, the number is still very small. So it is essential to work on a broader scale.

10. Share your long-term plan and where do you want to see Alokito Poth in the upcoming few years?

We have two long-term plans, firstly ensuring sustainable recovery, and secondly, we want to expand our operations all over Bangladesh. We also plan to provide vocational training to the recovered children so that they can be successful in the future.