International Day of persons with Disability (December 3, 2011)
Venue: SNEHALAYA- A Home with Love, Gwalior
SETU organized a workshop at ‘Snehalaya- A home with love’ on “International Day of Persons with Disability”.
Snehalaya is an orphanage cum care home for disabled and destitute children & adolescents with disorders or syndromes like Cerebral palsy, Tuber sclerosis, psoriasis, epilepsy and AIDS. The total strength of such children is sixty-three with mixed age groups. Snehalaya also runs a regular school for the poor children of the local vicinity with more emphasis on girl child education.
The workshop involved `painting’ as a therapeutic activity for these children. The regular kids also took part in the activities. The main motive of SETU behind organizing the whole event was to experience & interact with children, give them little happiness by spending time with them and pore over the problems that they undergo, so that we can be of help in any way they might necessitate in future. They were provided with sheets, painting colors and fresh vegetables cut into various shapes so that they could be used as blocks. The kids took part in the activities with a lot of enthusiasm, as for them block painting with vegetables was completely new; with this they learned new shapes, designs and colors. Students from the Nursing College of the city volunteered and helped us in conducting the competition. Various sweets, chips & Fruits were distributed among them at the end of the event.
Snehalaya on the other hand organized a small cultural program in the honor of SETU. In this event, kids suffering with Down Syndrome & Hepatitis- B with speech difficulties and CP with knee & ankle deformities gave an astonishing performance by dancing on the tunes of Bollywood film songs. It was heartening to see the kids so happy and the smile on their faces was simply precious.
Unleashing inner creativity as a therapy – Workshop at Amar Jyoti – 12th Feb 2011
Nothing is more powerful than the smile on a child’s face. Now multiply this by 129, and you will get a small sense of what SETU staff and volunteers experienced on February 12th!
In order to interact with the kids and to help them discover themselves, SETU team conducted a workshop for the Amar Jyoti Charitable Trust’s kids on 12th of Feb 2011. One of our leading volunteers was Hetal Shah, fellow of indicorps, a USA based organization. Around 129 children ( inclusive of physically & mentally challenged kids) attended the highly interactive and fun loving session.
The workshop comprised of two activities “Speak up!” and “vegetable block painting”. The first activity “Speak up” was an ice breaker activity, aimed at bringing the children out of their shells, to build up their confidence level and to make them aware about their inner self so that they can be clear about what they want to be in the future. As part of the activity, children were provided with small pieces of paper with numbers from 1 to 5 written on them. What the kids had to do was to open the paper and tell as many things about them as the number. Initially, the kids were a bit shy about the whole activity; to remove their hesitation SETU team and volunteers helped them out and also offered kids with chocolates as incentive.
A child’s imagination is full of colors, and to add more colors to it, especially in the lives of these differently-abled kids, we planned a “vegetable block painting” activity where the children were asked to paint using different vegetables and a brush. The basic purpose of carrying out this activity was to introduce the kids to their creative side which is necessary for a child’s all round development. For the task, they were provided with vegetables like, potatoes, okra, carrots etc. cut in different shapes, color plates and pastel colors. Kids were asked to dip vegetable in the color and make an impression of it on the paper. Result was incredible! Children made beautiful drawings, high above the expectations! With beautiful flowers, houses, faces, landscapes, we were thoroughly impressed by their creativity, one of them even made SETU’s logo!!
SETU team and volunteers along with teachers at Amar Jyoti, assisted children in the activities. In order to increase participation we distributed chocolates and snacks among the kids.
The best part, of course, was seeing the 129 smiles as each child left the room. We hope to do more activities like this with Amar Jyoti in the future. It was a day to cherish forever!
Polishing skills to increase efficiency- Trainer for artisans development (November 2010)
We at SETU have appointed a master trainer to develop the design skills of our artisans. His first project is with one of our partner groups Amar Jyoti, an NGO working for the rehabilitation of physically and mentally challenged children and adults.
Mr. Sunit Dutt is a master designer and has got years of experience in cutting & tailoring for large export houses. At Amar Jyoti, he is teaching the artisans to cut economically & ingeniously and is also working to improve their stitching techniques. In a short period of time, he has managed to bring the fabric consumption in bags down by 40%.
One of our major aims is the rehabilitation of the mentally and physically challenged people including men, women and children. These people are blessed with some special abilities which need to be recognized at an early stage in an attempt to make their lives meaningful. Making these people self sustainable is very important as generally the society looks them with sympathy and considers them low in skills compared to their so called normal counterparts. This due to the very fact that these people can’t stand for themselves and therefore are soft targets of criticism.
By some of our programmes like promoting abilympics and sponsoring education for the special needs children, we at SETU try to make them self sustainable so that they can create a life of dignity for themselves.
Amar Jyoti and Very Special Art are some of our partners which work towards the rehabilitation of the mentally and physically challenged children and adults.
Amar Jyoti is a voluntary organization rendering rehabilitative services to persons with disabilities through inclusive and integrated education, medical care, vocational training, child guidance and self-employment.
Very Special Arts, India also focuses on working with children and adults with disabilities.
SETU works with these groups with the basic aim of making the physically & mentally challenged people self-sustainable. Rather than making them dependent on others for their living, SETU tries to prepare them vocationally. SETU not only tries to develop products that these special needs people can create, but also helps them improve product quality to be at par with international standards, optimize the costs and choose eco-friendly raw materials. In addition, SETU provides them market for their products. They can thus be self-sustainable and live their lives in a dignified manner without being dependent on others.
By creating these products, with an assured market platform, these people also develop self-confidence. On the other hand, unleashing of their creativity acts as a therapeutic medium for these differently-abled people. A lot of supporting activities are involved in creating a product which also act as therapeutic exercises for some children. For e.g., there is a process of weaving which is done by special adults (at Very Special Art). However, special needs children try to make wool balls from hanks, the process acting as an exercise to improve their hand-eye co-ordination, attention span, motor & cognitive capabilities.
Following is a brief glimpse of our activities for differently abled people :
Promoting abilympics
Abilympics are vocational skill competitions for persons with disabilities to enable them to showcase and enhance their talent. Abilympics empower the contestants and help create public awareness about their abilities. National Abilympic Association of India is the official organizer for the event along with Amar Jyoti Charitable Trust, one of groups working with us. It is a member of the International Abilympic Federation.
SETU gave donations for purchase of sewing machines for the regional abilympics –north zone. The experience was a satisfying one as we were able to do something for these extremely able people. We hope to promote more such events in the future.
Lending a helping hand to the differently abled:
(Amar Jyoti Charitable Trust)
Amar Jyoti Charitable Trust is on of our partner artisan groups which works towards the rehabilitation of physically challenged people. We are very proud to be associated with it and always try to help them in their endeavors as and when possible. In one of such efforts SETU sponsored microscopes and lamination machines for Amar Jyoti.
Microscopes to be used in pathology department for testing purposes and lamination machines were to be used for art and craft related activities.
Amar Jyoti
Development & Education Project: The [candle] flame that never extinguishes
This project revolves around the organization whose main purpose is to provide education and health care to underprivileged children. The school also provides vocational education to help them become self-sustainable when they grow up.
The school raises some income by making the newspaper & jute bags which have been developed for them by SETU as a part of fostering self-sustainability, but they need more help.
Half of the children they work with have some kind of disability (hearing impaired, sight problems, missing limbs, mentally challenged, neurological disorder, and so on). The other half come from very poor families. This creates an integrated environment where the physically impaired children can interact with the “normal” children, and where all of them can have a positive education environment. The organization has their own clinic that helps the children with disabilities. They also take care of special surgeries, and even have a workshop that makes the prosthetic limbs that some children use.
The school is constantly in need to buy or upgrade computers, ocular implants, water purifiers, motor-run sewing machines (to teach the physically impaired children how to sew), furniture and building maintenance. However, their biggest need at the moment is money to cover the vocational training. The programs that are available for them to study are: Art & Craft, Textile Design and Jute Bag Making, Computer Applications, Cutting & Tailoring, Electrician. For now, each student needs $150.00 (about Rs 7000) a year to cover for education costs.
SETU not only tries to develop products that these special needs people can create, but also helps them improve product quality, optimize the costs and choose eco-friendly raw materials. In addition, SETU provides them market for their products. They can thus be self-sustainable and live their lives in a dignified manner without being dependent on others.
