Komang Sumiasih

Komang Sumiasih, who is 16 years old, will stay at the home in Klungkung until mid-2003. She has had polio and is now an "old friend" of the foundation who had ADL (day-to-day living) training in the past from the foundation's occupational therapist. She can move short distances independently using a wheelchair and indoors crawls on hands and knees. At the home she has a borrowed wheelchair but it was in poor condition and had soft tyres. No pump was available. The foundation gave Komang a pump that can be used for both wheelchairs at the home, but is and will remain her property. The wheelchair also had some maintenance.

Komang has been at the home for a couple of years. She can look after herself. She crawls when using the kamar mandi (toilet and washroom), sitting partly on a low wooden bench and partly on the floor and the toilet. The washroom is too small to manoeuvre in a wheelchair and she would need help with this, while she prefers to wash and use the toilet independently. APA Foundation has given her a commode which is now permanently in the kamar mandi and available to all the children who need it.

The 2002/3 school year is Komang's last year at the primary school and as she will not continue her education will also mean the end of her stay at the home. She has no plans for further education. Staff of the foundation have discussed this at length with her and her family. Many opportunities have been considered and solutions thought up, but for the time being Komang sees too many problems in trying to join normal education. Young people with such handicaps are very rarely allowed to follow normal schooling and so are a real exception. Even if Komang were offered the opportunity, she does not want to attend an institution for young people with a handicap too far from home. At a later stage, there will be discussions with her to see if she can and wants to continue in education or job training.

At home she can only move around the house and garden by crawling. Outside she is carried to and from the house by her father and on a borrowed motor bike. As her father also has to work, it follows that Komang will often have to stay at and around the house. She has been given her own wheelchair by APA Foundation so she can move independently at weekends and for the time after her primary education.