Michael Roberts
Parents and families who are burdened wth the care of children with advanced degrees of AUTISM have to cope with burdens unimaginable (and some parents do manage to extend unbelievable degrees of love and attention to their progeny — as I winessed a few years back in the course of a field visit with Roshan Samarawickrama of ECSAT in Galle: see ……………………………………….. https://thuppahis.com/2020/09/08/outreach-ecsat-aid-for-the-totally-impaired/.
In early April this year I was able to witness and photograph one of the special sessions that ECSAT conducts for autistic children and teenagers at their headquarters every now and then. This task demands one on one aid and encouragement for each and every child/teenager by trained ECSAT aides (mostly female). My pictorial snaps of this work were deemed too amateurish for public display (my assessment). I now have the benefit of professional photographs sent to me by Lakshika De Silva of ECSAT.
There can be no better illustration of the community service rendered by ECSAT in this particular line of aid for the disadvantaged than this corpus of pictures. When one’s body is wracked with, and wrecked by, severe autism, the awesome weight on one’s family is unimaginable.
To Lakshika De Silva, Ayesha Ponnmperuma, Piyum Gunäwardena and ALL ye earnest workers in a philanthropic line of aid in a little-known field, all I can say is this: “I marvel. I applaud. Do carry on.
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A commendable gesture…indeed