Horses heal children of India
Teacher enriches community with Healing Horses program
A post graduate in sociology, Pushpa Bopaiah was a school teacher who had dedicated most of her life towards enriching the lives of the underprivileged children with physical disabilities. She was very passionate about the cause and never feared failures. She just kept on batting till a million-dollar idea struck her. She forgot all her scepticism and didn’t let her passion dilute but instead followed her instinct. And today, she is one of India’s first equine therapists. Who is an equine therapist, you may ask?
‘Equine therapy’ provides a metaphoric experience with horses to promote emotional growth. This experiential therapy teaches people about themselves, allows recognition of dysfunctional patterns of behaviour, and helps define healthy relationships. The horse assists in making patients aware of their emotional state as the horse responds in reaction to their behaviour. She always did love horse riding and one fine day she thought of combining both her passions into a lucrative idea that eventually helped her further the cause of uplifting the lives of the underprivileged with physical disabilities.
“I love horse riding and when I read about this therapy through which a disabled person’s abilities can be enriched through horse riding, I was very keen to learn more about it. And eventually, I thought introducing this activity in the lives of the underprivileged could be an enriching move.
I joined many e-groups, collected a lot of information about equine therapy and managed to get a scholarship to go and study equine therapy in the US,” says Bopaiah. An affiliation towards the art of horse riding and empathy towards the underprivileged were the only two pre-requisites required to seek an admission.
She completed the course and came back to India in 2000 to start ‘Healing Horses’, a centre for therapeutic riding for people with disabilities. “Of course, we didn’t start on a positive note as there were many hurdles. People here in India were not well versed with this concept. I knew a few people from my kin and talked to them about the therapy and even contacted some school authorities to generate awareness. We started with 10 children and didn’t collect any fees,” says Bopaiah.
As the awareness increased, there were many who started sending their kids to the institute. “Eventually, I began to charge a fee of Rs. 25 per child which has now been hiked to Rs. 100 per child. But for me, it has never been a money-making exercise but a service that I render to the society and most of the money accumulated goes towards the maintenance of the horses,” adds Bopaiah. So far she has trained about 350 children and now she has children coming in from various parts of the country and also from other parts of the world.
Today, she conducts therapy at the Princess Academy in Palace Grounds and Polo Academy ASC, Bangalore. She concludes, “These kids are a part of my life now and watching them smile and seek happiness from the smallest of their victories makes me feel complete as an individual.”
As reported by The Economic Times, India
