SANKALP-IN AID OF DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLE CHILDREN

Dear Kind Hearts

Greetings from SANKALP team

New session for the year 2016-2017 began on 9^th June after the summer break. We had many requests for admission in the new session at the same time five old children left. We decided to maintain our strength to 45 children therefore; only five new children were admitted. This session has

Encouraging results of the pilot project for providing education through tabs/I Pad to the children led us to include this as a regular feature in our curriculum. These APPS helped in teaching autistic as well as other mentally/developmentally challenged children who are unable to speak but are able to respond through audio-visual stimulations. It increased child’s motivation to learn and was found useful even for children with profound disabilities. We are able to personalize lessons to child’s individual needs. Under this program we have appointed one new teacher and also assigned fulltime responsibility to another teacher for giving E Education to children. Initially 33 children are covered in the program but from next quarter 3 more will be added. We have purchased two tablets and need few more so that other teachers can also use them regularly. Taking a cue from the success of the tab based education; we wish to include more audio-visual lessons in the class room for larger group of children. For this purpose we need an overhead projector. Cost of each tabs & the projector is approx. $150 & $600 respectively. We look forward to our donors to help us buy them.

We have also added few more analyticals in our annual progress report of children this year which will indicate the reasons for low progress achieved by any child in any area of training or therapy and help us find the reasons and address them.   

A new set of uniform, a school bag & stationery has been distributed to the children free of cost. We have also tied up with L&T’s ladies welfare association for regular distribution of sanitary napkins to the girls throughout the year. Accordingly, 6 girls who needed them were distributed first 3 month’s supply and were also given a brief talk about maintaining necessary personal hygiene.   

The annual psychological assessment has already been completed to record the status with respect to the disability level and also to compare it with last year to check the progress for old children and also to design the IEP (Individual Education Plan) for each child for the current session. The IEPs have been completed and their progress targets to be achieved during the year have been fixed. Orthopedic checkup of three children who needed it has also been completed while Pediatric checkup for all children is fixed for 3^rd August followed by ENT, Dental & Ophthalmic checkups during August.

We at Sankalp believe that learning is a continuous process and everyone including our experts also needs to keep learning and update their domain knowledge. We therefore, always look forward to any such opportunities to interact with outside experts in the field for sharing their knowledge & experiences with our team. We came to know that a very senior and experienced person is visiting Vadodara in July. We got in touch with her and invited her at Sankalp during her stay at Vadodara. She was kind enough to accept our invitation and visited us on 19^th, 20^th and 24^th July.

She is Ms. Neeta Das, founder and president of Progressive Comprehensive Services LLC, New Jersey, USA. She has done Master's in social work and is a licensed clinical social worker there. She has over 36 years of experience working within the field of developmental disabilities. She facilitates and provides opportunities to individuals with developmental and mental disabilities with specific goal of helping them live meaningful, independent, and integrated lives in their communities. The services her agency provides are person centered and choice based, modeled after the principles of self-determination. She also runs a Center for Enhancing Abilities in New Jersey that provides individuals with a variety of opportunities and experiences in a small group setting that enriches their lives and prepares them for real life situations and employment. 

Ms. Das saw the facilities at Sankalp, interacted with our special educators and therapists. She conducted a workshop for our educators/therapists on 20^th July during which she shared with them her experiences of dealing with persons with disabilities in US and also gave some very useful tips on how to get the best out of children with special needs. She also participated in the parent counseling session which was organized on 24^th July and gave a motivational lecture as well as tips to the parents. She also took a question answer session at the end and clarified various concerns of the parents. Her guidance was very much liked and appreciated by parents, teachers and the management of Sankalp.

Let’s see what Ms. Das wrote in the visitor’s book of Sankalp:

“ To the team @ Sankalp.

It was a great privilege to visit your school/day program. I feel elated & proud knowing that these children are receiving excellent care and training. Meeting the staff was a great pleasure- there is such commitment and the compassion was coming through. I wish all of you the very best in every new endeavor you take on in future!

I’m leaving with tremendous pride in my heart having met all of you. Thank you. -  Neeta Das”

We are grateful to Ms. Neeta Das for sparing her time and experiences with team Sankalp and giving them valuable advice.

Observing positive improvements in the life of children at SANKALP and knowing that our working is being approved by outside experts motivates every member of our team and gives us confidence to do our best.

Until the next report a big THANK YOU for your support to our project. We assure you that YOU will be updated on what impact YOUR donation has made & what accomplishments we have achieved from time to time.

Photographs of various activities are being updated at our website www.mpctrust.org you can also follow us at Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/SankalpVadodara