Education  India Project #24545

Support Abandoned Mentally Challenged Children

by Sri Arunodayam Charitable Trust
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Support Abandoned Mentally Challenged Children
Support Abandoned Mentally Challenged Children
Support Abandoned Mentally Challenged Children

Project Report | Dec 7, 2017
Shantha's Story

By Althea DSylva | Manager - Communications & Resource Mobilization

Shantha enchants the crowd!
Shantha enchants the crowd!

Shantha is an 11 year old little girl with mild intellectual disability. She also lives with hydrocephalus – a condition in which there is an accumulation of cerebrospinal fluid in her brain causing increased pressure inside her skull. Unable to care for her on account of poverty, her parents had surrendered her to the Government Cradle Baby Center in Dharmapuri District, Tamil Nadu State, when she was a little child. She came to our home when she was 4 years old.

Sustained special education and physiotherapy brought Shantha up to speed over the years, but more especially in the past year where her progress has been simply phenomenal! The role of the speech therapist was very critical in helping her express herself coherently. Around 6 months ago, Shantha passed a psychological evaluation that found her fit for mainstream education and she was enrolled in the 3rd grade at a Government school under the ‘inclusive learning’ program. Apparently, Shantha has a lot of hidden potential which needed some tapping into! In the past year she took up drawing, making small pieces of jewelry and painting colorful clay lamps.

As if this wasn't achievement enough, Shantha began to excel at classical Indian Bharatanatyam dance (which can be quite challenging for ‘normal’ children too!). We had introduced dance classes at the home less than a year ago and at first it didn’t appear that she would stick with it because of hyperactivity and body imbalance issues. But Shantha took us by surprise! Not only has she overcome her challenges but she is able to remember long and complex dance sequences and lyrics, and is well on her way to becoming a wonderful classical dancer who has made 6 public appearances already!

This is very exciting for us! A child written off by society but with a fighting chance to make it big one day! Thanks to her special educators, speech and physiotherapists, she is reaching her fullest potential today!

  • Watch her dance at: https://www.facebook.com/deepakraj.sethuraman/videos/vb.100001987497694/124421941232 0963/?type=3&theater
  • Shantha also performed at our Special Mom Award ceremony on May 14, 2017. You’ll find pictures of her and the rest of the troupe under the “Picture Gallery” (Welcome Dance by our Children) section at: https://sriarunodayam.org/special-mom-post-page/ 
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Organization Information

Sri Arunodayam Charitable Trust

Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu - India
Website:
Facebook: Facebook Page
Twitter: @sri_arunodayam
Project Leader:
Iyyappan Subramanian
Founder Managing Trustee
Chennai , Tamil Nadu India

Funded Project!

Combined with other sources of funding, this project raised enough money to fund the outlined activities and is no longer accepting donations.
   

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