In December 2023, I went to India and visited Kutch to see the impact of VOSAP on its beneficiaries. I visited the Shri Navchetan Andhjan Mandal, Madhapar, Bhuj-Kutch, a ‘Special School’ for children with disabilities. that has students who have visual impairment, intellectual disability, locomotor disability and also hearing-impaired children.
This school believes in leveraging technology and helping kids to learn new technology, and even have several vocational training programs and also some students have done wonders in sports like Blind Cricket at state and national level. I visited this location school with the Ignite Leader for Houston, Hema.
When I was there, I saw many buildings including their school, library, and the building for the mentally disabled. At the entrance lies the special area for the mentally disabled, mainly consisting of children with ADHD. This area specially trains those children to ‘calm down’ so they can, after some time, participate in normal classes with other children. They do exercises and work that prepares them for school. The next building is the library. In there, there are thousands of braille books for children to read.
I talked to one blind child who demonstrated how he uses a tablet with audio to read books and do homework. It is very interesting to see how fast they can listen and use the tablets or phones. I went to the school building, where every classroom has a special whiteboard that lets the teacher and student interact. This helps disabled children participate in the classroom. There is also a special room that they have for the SAP’s physical therapy. They have lots of yoga equipment for normal students and have special equipment for different types of disabilities. For students that had cerebral palsy, they had specialized equipment for them. For students that had mental illnesses, they had specialized equipment for them too.
It is a very heartwarming and inspiring experience here, as I first saw a special school that truly cared and helped these SAPs in India. I had an amazing time there as they were very nice and kind and I am happy to see VOSAP helping small schools like these that help integrate normal people and SAPs together.
