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A special note from the founders of UHCD Foundation

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Khaled M Shahriar, Executive Director and Co-founder

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Dr. Mahmuda Sawgat, MBBS

We are delighted to introduce to you the UHCD Foundation, currently headquartered in New York. Our primarily goal is to extend our helping hands for the welfare of the children with disabilities, especially those under the poverty threshold. Our approach is to offer financial assistance, education and counseling for the families and connect them with the proper resources to ensure fulfillment of the child's medical and therapeutic needs. Our innovative approach includes creating a location-enabled database management system with interactive connectivity between parents, physicians, therapists and interested sponsors.

At UHCD, our commitment to empowering children with disabilities is reflected in our innovative UHCD Connect software. This cutting-edge technology will pave the way for a new era of comprehensive support for every child. Our interactive assessment activities utilize engaging tools to evaluate developmental skills across cognitive, sensory, and motor domains. By integrating these assessments into advanced data analytics, we provide real-time insights that track progress and inform personalized care plans. Together, we are creating a collaborative community that champions the potential of every child, unlocking opportunities for growth and empowerment.

Raising a child with disability is quite an undertaking for parents as it is exhausting, depressing and typically an emotional roller coaster for most. Some parents can adapt quite well to these challenges while others can barely manage between their jobs, the demands of daily living and fulfilling the special needs of their child, often resulting in depression and marital instability. Nonetheless, it's a compromised life-changing experience only a parent of child with disability understands best. The addition of financial hardship makes it even more difficult and sometimes extremely challenging for the parents or families raising a disabled child.

Our objective is to start working at grass root level to developing profiles of such children with disabilities whose parents or guardians are requiring and seeking further assistance financially for providing proper care to their loved one. To achieving the objective, we want to initiate our journey in one of developing countries, like Bangladesh, first where poverty is very common in many rural and slum areas where they cannot even meet the basic needs. Hopefully once we can gain more knowledge and experience, we can further expand globally on other countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America etc.

Although Bangladesh is a developing country with noticeable improvements in the sector of providing care and support for the children with disabilities, the overall level of assistance is insignificant compared to the actual and minimum requirement on average. Developmental delay, cognitive impairment, physical and/or mental retardation, learning disability of the children has always been there for ages. However, the increasing number of children with disabilities in the financially challenged families becoming an unbearable pain to the parents so much so that the separation of parents or even in many cases abandoning the children causing further serious threats to the society. Many social organizations are counselling the families, however the hunger for foods and basic needs exceeds the capacity to obtain the education. Society, on the other hand, are mislabeling these children as curse to the parents. These precious angels in the World deserve to get the proper care they needed. Our supportive deeds might be quite a blessing for them.

UHCD Foundation's goal is to develop and maintain detailed systematic profiles of these children into a specially designed software based on family provided information, and their consents, and evaluation by qualified physicians and therapist determining the individualized interventions required. The system should also be able to track the financial contribution made by the sponsors, donors, record acknowledgements and many more, to ensure a proper care plan is established and activated.

Together we can begin this journey with our united efforts to extend our helping hands to the welfare of these children. Therefore, upon forming the foundation, participation of interested and like-minded people like you who are willing to participate in this mission with whichever capacity you can engage herein would be greatly appreciated, either voluntary or with honorable compensation for your time and talent.

Our initial effort may be limited to our small resources, and many of us may not to able to see it till the end in our lifetime, we can hope that one day we can extend our philosophy globally to the entire World.

We are humbly requesting you to please communicate with us or drop us a few lines with your valuable thoughts. We look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Respectfully,

Khaled Shahriar

Executive Director and Co-Founder

UHCD Foundation

[email protected]

Mahmuda Sawgat

Director of Advocacy and Co-Founder

UHCD Foundation

[email protected]


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Shafi Mahmud

As the brainchild of the UHCD Foundation, I am deeply proud of the journey we have embarked upon together. My experiences have shaped our mission to empower children with disabilities, and I am thrilled to see how our initiatives are making a difference in their lives. Currently, as a student at RPI focusing on Biotechnology and Health Economics with an emphasis on Neurology, my studies keep me busy.

I am excited to volunteer with UHCD for eight months, starting in the spring and summer semesters. I will be taking on this role as my schedule permits and will join in on virtual meetings between my studies. I find immense joy in delivering motivational speeches to the amazing parents and children enrolled with UHCD, sharing stories of resilience and hope that connect us all. This mission resonates deeply with me, and I am committed to fostering a supportive community where every child can thrive. Together, we are unlocking new possibilities and ensuring that each child has the chance to reach their fullest potential.