A dozen children sit in a circle in the sun, several in wheelchairs, laughing and calling out; one is blindfolded. A girl on crutches, her legs terribly twisted, taps the blindfolded boy then hurries to her seat, grinning, excited.
Now he must guess who it was,” says Delek Wangmo, Head Teacher at the Ngoenga School For Tibetan Children with Special Needs, located in the hills above Dehradun, India. The school’s 47 children, all between the ages of 7 and 18, have a a wide range of physical and mental disabilities. “They come from all over India,” Wangmo says. “It is open to any Tibetan child.” |
In India we see so much suffering, and social services - compared to the United States - are rare. It is moving to see a facility dedicated to a population often forgotten, even in nations where social services abound. It reminds me yet again, and very powerfully, how caring people can be, and how incredibly lucky I am.
photos by Nathan Whitmont