Build a Group home for 200 Indians with Autism

As someone rightly said, "Play a sport it will teach you how to win honourably, lose gracefully, respect authority, work with others, manage time and stay out of trouble".

Be it sports or exercise reaps a lot of benefit for those whoever does it. Physical activity is something that nourishes our overall health and that's the reason schools inculcate sports in their curriculum from a very young age. The story changes when it comes to people with Autism. Then the focus gets more in to  speech therapy ,developing social skills,building social skills  etc. forgetting that learning a sport will automatically address the social skill part. 

 At Ananda we always believe in holistic development of each and every individual hence invested on sports to improve the quality of lives of the residents. First we conducted a sports camp for 10 days where all our youngsters participated as well as assists were given trainings on different activities. Then, from the  following month residents started having regular sessions. 

 When it started around 11 months back some of our interns barely participated and their involvement used to be sitting and observing other interns doing activities. Though before the sports classes began our youngsters had experience of playing the adapted and simplified version of traditional games like football, volleyball, cricket etc where all assists and residents equally used to participate  and enjoy. Still, initially, when the sports program began and they had to switch from one activity to other, some of our residents used to find it overwhelming, but slowly things started changing when structure was incorporated to the activities. Also, the activities conducted were  simple and basic  which most of the interns were able to do. The duration they get involved in one activity has also improved. As part of the sports activities the interns were divided in to two groups where one group compete with the other, but it is always amazing to see how they stick to their team and supporting them and trying to win the game. 

The sessions always starts with warm ups followed by some interesting games and ending with some kind of stretching and that predictability is yet another thing which has helped our youngsters to perform better.