The High Com­mis­sion of In­dia and Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi In­sti­tute for Cul­tur­al Co-op­er­a­tion in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Fo­rum of In­di­an Na­tion­als in Trinidad and To­ba­go (FINTT) and Cere­bral Pal­sy So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go (CP­STT) or­gan­ised a Dance and Move­ment Ther­a­py Work­shop for chil­dren af­fect­ed with cere­bral pal­sy at Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex on No­vem­ber 26, 2011.

Cere­bral pal­sy is a non-cur­able de­vel­op­men­tal neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­abil­i­ty that af­fects mus­cle con­trol and move­ments, learn­ing, hear­ing, see­ing and think­ing. Twen­ty-four cere­bral pal­sy chil­dren from var­i­ous parts of Trinidad and To­ba­go along with their par­ents par­tic­i­pat­ed in this event. An 11-mem­ber Ma­nipuri Mar­tial Art/Dance Group from In­dia, led by renowned Ma­nipuri dance ex­po­nent Pri­ti Pa­tel, taught them var­i­ous move­ments through the medi­um of dance to re­lieve their spas­tic limbs.

Ma­nipuri dance, in its unique­ness of be­ing dance with gen­tle, smooth and flu­id move­ments, helped these spe­cial chil­dren in up­lift­ing their spir­it and con­fi­dence. Doc­tors and phys­io­ther­a­pists from FINTT or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so as­sist­ed them.

Pa­tel has un­der­gone for­mal train­ing from the Les­ley Col­lege, Boston in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca in dance and move­ment ther­a­py and has worked with spe­cial chil­dren in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the In­di­an In­sti­tute for Cere­bral Pal­sy. She has de­vel­oped this unique form of ther­a­py.

The or­gan­is­ing com­mit­tee thanked all the par­tic­i­pant fam­i­lies and Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex ad­min­is­tra­tion for their as­sis­tance. They al­so as­sured con­tin­u­a­tion of sim­i­lar work­shops in fu­ture.