From Ireland To Peshawar: How A Special-Needs Centre Is Changing Lives In Peshawar

Yvonne Frizzell, a woman from Ireland, has been working dedicatedly in Peshawar, Pakistan helping patients fight with cerebral palsy.

After completing her training in paedreatic psychotherapy Royal London Hospital, Frizzell got married to a Pakistani man. They came to Peshawar and started living there. Two-year-old Akbar Saifullah Khan, a boy with cerebral palsy also started living with them, because his mother Mrs. Saifullah Khan thought that no one would be able to help her son apart from Frizzell.

Khan was living with Frizzell and he went on to stay with her in Ireland as well, where he spent 13 years in school. In this period, Khan’s condition progressed a lot and at the age of 21, he came back to Pakistan again to live with his mother.

At that point, Mrs. Saifullah Khan gave an idea to Frizzell of opening an institute in Peshawar, to treat people with cerebral palsy in Pakistan, absolutely free of charge. This idea sparked off and in 2005, Frizzell became the clinical lead of Akbar Kare Institute (AKI), in University Town of Peshawar.

In a special feature made by Pakistan’s newspaper Dawn, it has been reported, the institute operates for six days a week and have 7,000 patients registered. AKI has now become an integral part of Frizzell’s life. She has now taken up Pakistani nationality as well.

Even though the government does not provide much support to the institute, she has been able to slowly built support of families and parents of children with cerebral palsy.

Dawn reports that the institute has changed buildings three times owing to several internal problems and resistance shown by the government. Frizzell believes that the AKI has a real chance for advocacy and to change the way people look at cerebral palsy treatment in Pakistan. She gives lectures in Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad on sustainable ways to treat the ailment.

The Logical Indian salutes Frizzell and all the members in the institute for relentlessly helping people battle challenges posed by cerebral palsy.

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