Stammer Therapy Is Ready To Create An Impact

Stammering, you must have heard this word, no? If not, let me explain it to you. Stammering is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words, or phrases as well as involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the person who stammers is unable to produce sounds. It is an abstract disability that can be worse than a nightmare for those who experience it in their day to day life. Stammering affects communication skills, self-confidence, and a person’s ability to utilize his/her potential to make a full contribution to the society. There is no magical pill to cure stammer but there are speech therapies that are beneficial in helping people manage their stammer and learn to speak more easily. Research suggests that speech therapy is the best treatment for both adults and children who stammer, with a large body of evidence supporting its efficacy.

But what if one doesn’t have access to take speech therapies? Either the place is too far to visit for every session or it is too costly.

Stammer Therapy is here to address this problem. We aim to connect those who stammers with speech therapists virtually, one by one and in group meetings. It will be a not-for-profit business such that it will provide free of cost session to those who stammer.

Logo (A dark phase before the therapy VS A bright phase after the therapy)

Business Model Canvas

Task Division Among Circle Members

1. Mashal (Group Lead)
   The group lead took the responsibility of content writing, finding speech therapists, and overall management of the business such that he makes sure that all the operations are running smooth. Moreover, he makes sure that each member is contributing in the group for which he calls group meeting every week. He found a professional speech therapist in his extended network and convinced her to work voluntarily for this cause.
2. Abdul Aziz
   His core responsibility is designing the posters for social media posts couple with content writing for blogs. Besides this, he work on the maintenance of the website with Abdul Qadeer.
3. Abdul Qadeer
   He is a talented web developer and computer expert who developed Stammer Therapy’s website. He manages it continuously and is responsible for all the technical work of the business.
4. Faria
   She works on social media marketing such that she interacts with people on Facebook stammering groups thereby telling them about our business. Besides this, she also helped Qadeer in development of website by providing pictures for it and constructive suggestion for graphics.
5. Ghulam Muhammad
   He handles the marketing of the business. He is in contact with the Health Department Quetta and Balochistan Stars. He convinced one professional speech therapist and she is willing to work voluntarily for this cause.
6. Muhammad Haris Safi
   He work alongside Faria in helping the business find people who stammers and in need of therapy for it.
7. Urooj Mumtaz
   Last but not the least, Urooj works hard to get in touch with organizations who can add value to our business.

Timeline
In January, meetings were held with HOD Psychology department that offers speech therapy diplomas and Health Department Quetta regarding availability of speech therapists. Moreover, we will have a meeting in the upcoming week with Balochistan Stars who will help us in marketing of the business. On 15th January, we officially launched the Facebook page. We convinced 2 professional speech therapists who are willing to work voluntarily. The speech therapists will start the sessions from 2nd week of February.

Anticipated Challenges
1) To find volunteer speech therapists.
2) To pitch our idea to the masses.
3) To find stammerers who needs to improve their speeches.
4) To connect with organizations who can add value to our business.

We found 2 professional speech therapists in our extended professional network’s. We launched our website and Facebook page so people can reach us out. We are in touch with stammerers from local stammering groups and collected data about them from local hospitals speech therapy departments. Moreover, we are in touch with Balochistan Health Department and Balochistan Stars and aim to connect with more potential ones.

We aim to create a 2 way process where stammerers will give us feedback after their therapy sessions through google forms; it will help us improve our services.

We showed a significant progress in such short span of time. This all progress would not have possible without the consistent effort and teamwork that resulted in synergy.

PS: Blog is written by Abdul Aziz