Coaching Yeshi

Now that Yeshi has completed the theoretical part of the Qigong massage course for children with autism, I have started to involve her more actively in my sessions. I am coaching her and giving her opportunities for supervised practice.
First, she joined a parent-teaching group where I introduced some new parents to the basics of Qigong massage. The next day, I asked her whether she wanted to watch again, assist me with the teaching, or even take over the session herself. She said she would like to take over, because she felt that this would help her learn the most if I gave her feedback afterwards. So she led the whole parent-teaching session on her own. I only added a few small details, and she remembered most of the things I had taught the parents the previous time. The next time, she even remembered almost all the additional points I had given her as feedback. She always takes notes after the sessions and reviews them beforehand so that she can remember everything. She really is a wonderful student. I appreciate very much how much initiative she takes, how eager she is to learn, and how she uses every opportunity to practise. She often comes to me with questions about things that are not yet clear to her, or to ask for advice. Whenever she has the chance, she practises and asks me to supervise her and give feedback.
She sees this as a great opportunity, both for herself and for the children, and I can feel that she really wants to make the very best of it. This will make my departure easier, because I know that there will be a very motivated person at ABS who can continue the Qigong massage therapies after I leave. It means that things will not simply return to how they were before I came. Of course, Yeshi will not be a physiotherapist after this course, but she will at least be able to offer therapeutic sessions using Qigong massage, which has been the tool I have worked with most during my time here.
It was quite a struggle to set everything up in a way that would allow her to work therapeutically afterwards, rather than continuing as a social worker in class. ABS needed to be able to free her up so that she could spend the whole day providing therapy for the children. The main challenge was to secure external funding for her salary for two years, so that ABS could hire a new social worker to take over the classroom work she had been doing. The main work ABS provides is still the classes for the children, and this remains the foundation of what ABS does. Being able to offer therapies is a very valuable supplement, but it is not the core of ABS’s work. I therefore wrote several project proposals to support the idea of having someone work therapeutically at ABS. The first proposal, which I wrote to the Society Switzerland-Bhutan, was accepted. They paid for Yeshi’s course fee so that she could take part in the Qigong massage training. I am extremely grateful for this, because without their support, the project of continuing Qigong massage for the children after my departure would not have been possible. This was the first important step.
After that, I wrote two more project proposals to secure funding for a person to work therapeutically at ABS. This would be a great benefit for the parents, as it would give them another option besides taking their children to hospital for therapy. However, the main difficulty was always the salary. The organisations we applied to explained that, according to their regulations, they do not pay salaries. But securing the salary for two years was the most important part of the project. At the moment, ABS does not have the capacity to pay an additional salary, and they need time to implement this and include the therapist’s salary in their own budget. I tried to find other options where we might have a chance of receiving salary funding as part of a project to implement something new, but I could not find a suitable solution. This is something ABS often struggles with: starting a project where salary costs are also included.
Since I had collected some donations for my work at ABS, I decided to ask some donors whether they would be willing to use the money to pay Yeshi’s salary, so that she can work therapeutically in my place after I leave. I am so thankful to the donors who agreed to this. Thanks to them, we now have enough money to cover Yeshi’s salary for two years. This gives ABS time to integrate her salary into the general ABS salary plan, and it gives me the opportunity to establish a staff member who can continue part of the work I have done here.
Thank you to everyone who made this possible. It will help the children at ABS a great deal!!!