Ensuring that the differently abled people are not left behind, Thusare Talking Hands, a therapy centre for the blind and deaf, employs them for body massage services.
Founded, funded and run by a Japanese national, Ishikawa, 46, and four others, this Therapeutic Massage centre on Dharmapala Mawatha, Colombo 07, caters to customers using Japanese therapy known as Shiatsu.
In what was started in April 2012, with only two visually impaired trainees, numbers rose to 14, with exactly seven of them as trainees.
The majority of them are visually-challenged, with a few also having hearing impairments.
“Once I met late Dr Sasada, the founder of this entity, also a blind. He finally came down to Sri Lanka, and fortunately, I met him, and he floated the idea of starting and guaranteed he would support by way of training,” Ishikawa said, adding that there are 150,000 blind people in the country.
They had been firm and insistent to venture it differently, therefore basing it on Japanese Therapy of Shiatsu or Acupressure Technique.
“We have trained 20–30 people. Then again, most of them came and left. They create issues and reasons to resign,” he said.
They offer full body therapy, neck-and-shoulder, and head massages.
Dr. Sasada had once told Thusare, meaning healing, should be a service of hands doing the healing, and soon he realised hands were doing the talking by healing.
“It has been fluctuating fortunes in running this place. The last two years have been good. In between, I was handling other things, and after I returned, I have revived things. Many blinded trainees have been asking to join. For that matter, capacity-wise too, I am assessing the situation. We need to grow. Therefore, assessing the situation,” he explained how it has been to man the centre.
He said since 85% of his customer base is foreign tourists, they are looking for more local customers, which, in turn, would give them exposure handling locals.
“Still, we are not exposed to the Sri Lankan community, not much. Foreigners enjoy the experience, however, we also like to cater to the local community. We need to strike a 50-50 balance”, he added.
He also revealed plans are in place to incorporate National Vocational Qualifications and discussions are on with the authorities.
“I’m thinking of this in the long term and may be two-to-three years,” he said.
Our big challenge is, “how to train female blind into therapists. This is one of our challenges. We have two female trainees. That poses a big challenge to transform them into therapists. Entirely because society perceives massage in a bad way. Those are our big challenge now.”
Blind people are categorised as differently abled. But they are also one of our members and part of this society, he said.
In his message to the locals, he concluded, claiming and urging, “They can also contribute and develop this world. We should give life support. Not necessarily a donation. There are many non-financial support we render to the needy. That is the need of the hour.”
Article Credit: dailymirror