Hubli Rehabilitation and Training Unit
It is with real sadness that after more than 40 years Hubli Hospital For The Handicapped Rehab and Training Unit has shut down! MESH has worked along side them for many of those years and in 2021/22 we purchased Rs 9,67,847/- worth of goods up until they closed in September. The wonderful collection of blocks for block printing have been gifted to Kiran centre in Varanasi but we shall miss the skills of the Hubli team for many years. I am glad to report that many of the workers found alternative work.Their confidence from years training and work in the rehab unit equipped them for work elsewhere.
Hubli Hospital for the Handicapped Rehabilitation & Training Unit provides work for people with all kinds of disabilities, in sewing, block and screen printing, paper and wood carving sections. Some people work at home and are now it is a familiar sight to see men and women with severe physical disabilities getting on and off the bus outside the hospital with back packs loaded up with their work for the next couple of weeks.
To wonder around the Rehabilitation and Training Unit in Hubli is a wonderful treat of colour and patterns, Man and women with disabilities like Dilshad (see above video) might be mixing colours, block or screen printing, cutting, sewing or stuffing toys, bags, cushion covers or a whole host of practical and beautiful products. Move away to one side to the woodcraft unit where blind craftsmen might be sanding wooden pencil boxes that have been carved by other people with disabilities. Or you might find yourself in the paper-craft room where artisans are painstakingly drawing threads on pretty printed fabrics ready to stick them on greetings cards.
The motto is to let artisans find what they are good at and can manage and then make products that will attract business that use those skills and capabilities. Here disabled has no meaning!
Here is more information shared by the team at Hubli
