Snehasangiti - With the team from Intel and Kids' Corner School

Our inability to see society as interdependent, to see it as just a part and not as a whole, has given rise to exclusion. The words ‘disabled’ vs ‘normal’ are just the vocabulary we use to further this division. At a theoretical level we appreciate the diversities that create the vibrancy of life yet at a practical and gut level we seem to reject anything that makes us distinct from each other. In the process our innate sense of connect, our humanity is what suffers. But as a society we all are inclusive. What needs to be done is to look at a medium that enables us to access the compassion that rests in all. If we are able to re-look at ourselves and are inspired to live differently and compassionately, we have then together created a world where everyone belongs. In an attempt to introduce the idea of the diversity of human needs and its impact on individuals who may or may not be directly linked to a special needs individual, we connected with Intel through our Creative Connections initiative.

Inclusion must be woven into the fabric of any effort so that it deflects the possibility of exclusion itself. If every centre working with children with special needs can co-locate with a mainstream school in their locality, this is possible. It will benefit not just children but society at large. We started this with a group of our children being at Kid’s corner, JP Nagar once a week for a few hours. They are buddied by the 8-11 year olds at the school. The children interact with each other and find a niche to offer and receive, communicate and learn.

As we approached the days leading to Snehadhara’s 4th Birthday we thought there could be no better moment to weave three diverse spaces to achieve the social cohesion we aspire to. We started our birthday celebrations with children from Kids’ Corner School, volunteers from Intel, and two batches of children from Snehadhara. The group of 60 were divided into 12 small groups and each group worked together to come up with a presentation. Some groups danced, some told stories, and some acted while all the others applauded. The unconditional acceptance shown by the children left every adult present overwhelmed.

Thank you to the team from Intel, the children from both learning centres had new friends, ‘the grown ups’ as the children call them.

One of our friends , Deekshith from Intel shared his experience: 

Deekshith: 

As the gate of the home opened, we were greeted with smiling faces of children, they all eagerly looked to see who had come into their abode.  We as an Intel team volunteered in the program "International Day of Person with Disabilities". As a part of this program, we went to Guinina farms, Begihalli where children with disabilities (from Snehadhara Foundation) were bought for art based learning activities.

As we proceeded to the reception to drop the items we went with and to get any information or rules we need to know and adhere to while we are there, group of adorable children (from Snehadhara and Kids corner) formed a round and Snehadhara people were involved in playing, singing and making children to learn, to be happy and getting them involved. We as a team joined that event and had fun playing, singing songs, and rhymes to teach the children art based learning. We also had fun in doing that. We just remembered our childhood days of playing, quarrelling, singing, dancing, learning, and so on.  I personally felt so happy seeing those children getting involved in the singing and rhyming activities forgetting all their miseries. Children from Kids corner also participated in the event. After singing and rhyming activities, each of us were grouped with two children (one from Kids corner, other child with disability) along with one volunteer from Snehadhara foundation. Each team were given a task to perform an activity.

I got a team with Charan from Kids corner, Sagar from Shehadhara, Bunty (Snehadhara volunteer taking care of  Sagar).

Sagar was so cute but his disability was unable to talk and understand the environment around. He was very much eager to go out and roam around in the garden every time. He was so cute that even though he cannot talk, was dragging me to go into the garden and roam. But the weather was so hot that we cannot roam outside for much time. He was so cute that when we say to sit down, he used to do that. I was so moved when he came and sat on my lap when I asked to sit down. 

Charan from Kids corner was so silent that when I asked to perform an act based on the themes we got to play (our team got Market place theme), he was just repeating the words I say but no other words. When we had to do it on the stage, he stopped saying his dialogue and was frightened to talk in-front of everyone. At that moment, I remembered my childhood days that being silent and fearful to talk to anyone. Later we completed the theme by having small conversation with each other.

Bunty, the volunteer of Snehadhara  was so patient in fact everyone who takes care of those children were so patient that every minute they use to teach the children how to do the daily activities, how to respond to a person, how to eat, drink, behave and so on.

Sneha, an exceptional girl. Cute and very smart. She knows 5 languages. She was so smart and every instruction we give, she followed it exactly and gives a very smart reply.

Later we had lunch with the children. Some of them only had juices and many were fond of muffins that we took for them. Sagar was not eating food but he had muffins.Post lunch, we had an interactive session  with Gitanjali, Founder of Snehadhara. It was sad to know that they  had to go through so many years to maintain the disabled children in a community. She was very happy when we as a team went to spend time with them. She said that many people will give donation but being with the children, spending time with them gives much more happiness, courage and hope. With those words, I was speechless and glad to be a part of this program.

When we were about to leave, we said bye to everyone. At the end Sagar saw me, caught my hand and was ready to come with me. That moment what I felt was speechless and couldn't move from there leaving those children. I took him catching his hand till we boarded the bus. I was so emotional at that moment to leave that place and children.

I am thankful to Intel for organizing  such  volunteering event because so far, I haven’t been to such place or nor volunteered. Being a team, going there was a wonderful experience and had full of emotional great memories to have in my life.Thanks to Snehadhara, Kids Corner childrens and the Intel Involved Coordinator for organizing such a great volunteering event.

These kids were full of smiles, nothing to worry about the rest of the world. Eager to play and even to pray (As when we wanted to share food for them, we gathered around each other and almost everyone wanted to Bless the food and to Ask God to Protect and Guide us).

As we left the Home, a thousand thoughts played and fought for preeminence in my head, a thousand words wanted to burst out of my mouth in expression of my feelings, but yet, nothing came out. Yes! I was overwhelmed. This was my first visit ever to a disability  home and it has left a lasting imprint in my heart.

As I lay down I write this, I'm Grateful for what I have. I'm thankful for my family, for my parents, For Me - just being me, as I am. So many times, I complain about my parents, about my background, but looking at those kids today, I'm Grateful.

I urge you, yes you reading this to Please, HELP SOMEONE TODAY.

Your little effort could mean the world to someone.The world would be a better place if we all agree to help our neighbors that we are better than. Our purpose as humans on earth is actually to serve God and help other people, to do good deeds. Love your neighbor. You can't love without helping, without giving.

"DO ALL THE GOOD YOU CAN, BY ALL THE MEANS YOU CAN, IN ALL PLACES YOU CAN,AT ALL TIMES YOU CAN, TO ALL PEOPLE YOU CAN,AS LONG AS EVER YOU CAN." 

-John Wesley

We are all dealt hands in life but it’s how we choose to handle that hand that counts, therefore in our world, art is an essential vehicle or catalyst for enabling the shifting of perception. With this experience of the Arts, let us look, absorb, engage, dance-with, ideate, create stories of perception, and entertain the possibility of seeing things in a different way. Problem solving essentially needs creative minds as it takes us out of ourselves, gives us ability to see the whole. Everyone in society has a role to play in creating an empathetic world. It has to be a multi-stakeholder model. See how we can do our bit by starting with ourselves. In a socially cohesive society all individuals and groups have a sense of belonging, participation, inclusion, recognition and legitimacy. Keeping the dialogue with this effort on, we intend to thread this journey with all children using the arts as a catalyst for growth that emerges from a collective past and towards a shared future.

Rights of person with disability act, 2016: Review

The rights of a person with disability act 2016 was passed by Lok Sabha on 16th December 2016 after it was passed by Rajya Sabha on 14th December 2016. It received the presidential assent on 27th December and has replaced the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995, The types of recognised disabilities have been increased from existing number of 7 to 21  with the residuary power to central government to add more types of disabilities as and when required. The disabilities recognised by this bill is following:

1. Blindness
2. Low-vision
3. Leprosy Cured persons
4. Hearing Impairment (deaf and hard of hearing)
5. Locomotor Disability
6. Dwarfism
7. Intellectual Disability
8. Mental Illness
9. Autism Spectrum Disorder
10. Cerebral Palsy
11. Muscular Dystrophy
12. Chronic Neurological conditions
13. Specific Learning Disabilities
14. Multiple Sclerosis
15. Speech and Language disability
16. Thalassemia
17. Hemophilia
18. Sickle Cell disease
19. Multiple Disabilities including deaf-blindness
20. Acid Attack victim
21. Parkinson's disease

The important thing to note is that the 2016 act has recognised intellectual disability and disability-related to speech and language as a disability under the bill which did not have this status earlier. The 2016 act have also created new categories of disabilities such as Dwarfism, a muscular dystrophy and blood disorders such as Thalassemia, Hemophilia and Sickle Cell disease.  It is for the first time that these disabilities have been included. 

The 2016 act, in contract with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities  2006 adopted by UN General Assembly, lays down the following principles for the empowerment of persons with disabilities:

(a) respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and independence of persons; 

(b) non-discrimination

(c) full and effective participation and inclusion in society

(d) respect for difference and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity.

(e) equality of opportunity.

(f) accessibility.

(g) equality between men and women.

(h) respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities.

Adhering to the aforementioned principles the 2016 act casts a responsibility upon the authorities and appropriate government to take effective measures ensuring the rights and benefits bestowed upon the person with disabilities. It mandates the government to make arrangements for the person with disabilities to enjoy their rights equally with others. The Act lays down the benefits such as reservation in higher education, government jobs, allocation of land, poverty alleviation schemes for the persons with high support needs and benchmark disabilities. It mandates 4 per cent reservation for the disabled in higher education institutions and government.Every child with benchmark disability between the age group of 6 to 18 is entitled have free education. Also, Government funded educational institutions, as well as the government, recognised institutions will have to provide inclusive education to the children with disabilities.The Act has penal provisions for non-compliance. The lays down provisions for the creation of National and State Fund to provide financial support to the persons with disabilities. The existing National Fund for Persons with Disabilities and the Trust Fund for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities will be subsumed with the National Fund.

The 2016 Act also incorporates penal provisions for non-compliance under which violation of any provision of the Act is punishable with a fine of Rs 10,000. and subsequent violations could attract a fine of Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh. Although the bill had the provision for a jail term of 6 months which may be extended to 2 years on subsequent violations but this was dropped in Rajya Sabha. The 2016 act has laid down provisions for guardianship of mentally ill persons. The District courts may award two types of guardianship. While a limited guardian is to take joint decisions with the mentally ill person, the plenary guardian takes decisions on behalf of the mentally ill person, without consulting them

The 2016 Act is a fresh breeze for which we have been waiting since 1995 but yes it would not be an exaggeration in saying that 2016 enactment is a fresh start and has answered few queries in the long bucket list. The implementation and executive attitude have to be tackled to make it a surface reality. 

Inclusion is Creating Conversations

"Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.”  What’s the starting point? Morality and fairness? Or Success and effectiveness?

I stepped out of a session on ‘Building inclusive classrooms through the Arts’ and much to my surprise, rather shock I see a group of people screaming, or should I say theatrically articulating using body and movement J . The noise was to convey that the land little beyond the lease land on which the school is built cannot be used for anything else as it needs to be set aside for a temple on the far end of a hill that it overlooks.  The voice and language intonation and vocabulary had threats, curses, abuses , swears and more. The principal said something that most of us would echo with ‘Inka inclusion kaise karein? We can work with the children in the classes at set up model centres, but what do we do about this prejudice and mind set?’ Having been through similar situations, I could see where she was coming from and also how far we have come in the way we think about these things, in the steps we take each day.

Inclusion is about the intentional building of relationships and creating conversations. Inclusion embodies the idea that identity is something to be continually re-negotiated as successive waves of groups enter into conversation with the majority. So in this way conversation is not just an excellent metaphor for the meaning of inclusion, it is also a vital mechanism to achieve it. It is through conversation that we can respectfully negotiate the terms of a partnership, but at the same time we appreciate conversation for its own sake, are not threatened or dissatisfied by the fact that it is open-ended.

But if building an inclusive society through conversation is to be sincere and productive, it has to be done between partners who demonstrate mutual respect, and be capable of freely engaging; partners with a clear sense of others, but also of themselves. It seems to me that this sort of capacity or capability is also at the core of what we mean by “inclusion”.

An important prerequisite of this sort of freedom is having a fully developed sense of self, of capacities to define what we value, and to make the choices necessary to get us there.

I would like to put the focus on children, and suggest that if a society is inclusive, it is in the very least a society in which children can become all that they can be. Obviously this is not the only dimension, and part of the task facing us is to clarify other dimensions through our conversations and deliberate efforts. But focusing on children and educators, facilitating these conversations through creative non-threatening artistic tools allows us to illustrate a framework for understanding the underlying drivers of inclusion, of the challenges facing   schools, institutions; in short societies seeking to be more inclusive.

Unless diversity is welcomed, and relationships are consciously nurtured, there will be little change in the educational experience for children. Of course, policy and legislative change is desirable, specialist skills can be useful and a greater financial investment in schools would be excellent, but making the correct choices that are effective is critical.

As I look back at what happened at the school I feel ‘Social Cohesion’ that brings and hold people together in society is what we need to aspire for. A society in which all individuals and groups have a sense of belonging, participation, inclusion, recognition and legitimacy. By respecting diversity, we harness the potential residing in societal diversity and are less prone to slip into destructive patterns of tension and conflict when different interests meet and collide. Then creating an environment where everybody can fulfillJ.

their potential, regardless of ability, shouldn’t be difficult.  Let’s start from the very beginning

Ishanya - Alternative Intervention for the Holistic Development of the Child

Ishanya we are proud of you! Friends, on the occasion of Ishanya's 1st Annual Day Celebrations, we are excited telling you about our collaboration with Ishanya in a pilot program on ‘technology assisted intervention’ for children with special needs. This offered us opportunities to give our children a range of learning experiences.

To mark the event, Ishanya is organizing a panel discussion on Saturday, October 22nd, 2016. Our Executive Director, Gitanjali is honoured to be a part of the afternoon session on “Alternative Intervention for the Holistic Development of the Child”. A number of distinguished speakers will be deliberating on issues of children with special needs, holistic interventions and learning and development.

We started our co-location with Ishanya last year and clearly it has been a meaningful engagement for the children and us. Children have been exposed to computer literacy skills and considerable progress has been made in developing their capabilities.

The objective of this collaboration was to create a child centric equal stake holder model which brings together co-location of organisations to share resources and expertise.
A huge round of applause to you, Ishanya!

The Reverberation of the rhythm and the rumble

Rennee writes about her experience co-facilitating a session with the UG students at IIPR. The session is a part of the certificate course titled ' Psycho-Socio Wellbeing using Arts and Play' offered jointly by Snehadhara and Headstreams.

Fifteen enthusiastic students along with the facilitators were on a rhythmic journey during the session to create a rhythmic revolution of sorts. One student proposed 'Spirituality'  as the topic for the song composition.There was instant acceptance by the group and they began to spell out their ideas, beliefs and notions . The board held all possible terms  from ‘Holy spirit’ to ‘Bholenath’ to 'Love, Peace, Joy and Hope'. Amidst all of these sprouted‘nothingness' from one participant.  With these words they quickly put up a song that had a chorus and a verse. Each group came up and performed to the others. Once the song was set, we got into a drum circle with djembes. No right, No wrong beats started as the group played the djembe and tried to sing their composition as they played along. 

What followed as a debrief was interesting . The word that stayed with the group was 'nothingness'. It was interesting to see what students understood of nothingness. Answers rolled down slowly from “Nothingness is everything” to, "I don’t know what it means " followed by, “It means nothing to me in connection with Spirituality” to " Nothingness is letting go", " Nothingness means nothing exists at all". This also stirred a discussion in the group on how difficult it is to hold our thoughts lightly. Each one held his / her idea of nothingness so strongly that by the end Nothingness actually became 'everything' for this session. Some felt peace, some in thoughts and some puzzled. 

Nothingness, also called emptiness (sunyata),does not mean that things do not exist at all. It means that things lack an inherent, independent, self-existence. While being nothing in this sense, they are something in the sense that they do have a conventional existence in dependence upon various other causes and conditions. the causes and conditions upon which something depends lack inherent existence as well. So, there is not even a form to grasp on to that is distinct from emptiness. And even the notion of emptiness, insofar as it is a definite conception, lacks inherent existence. Thus, in the end, the distinction between somethingness and nothingness collapses, and the mind opens. 

The reverberations of the beats ended as the minds rumbled .

Love of Wisdom - philo- meaning "love" and -sophos, or "wisdom."

This morning our group of therapists and trainers at Snehadhara Foundation had an interesting session titled "Introduction to Philosophical Thinking" facilitated by Adil Hasan. 

The session started off with a discussion on what is philosophy and how we are already philosophers when we think and ask questions in a structured way about universal themes and concerns.The group came up with interesting philosophical questions and talked through ideas like:

1. What is the connection between the mind and the body?

2. What is knowledge? Is science adequate to explain all observable phenomena?

3. Is there a soul over and above the mind? Does the soul transmigrate from body to body?

4. Can there be life after death?

5. What does it mean to have a self, can a person have different selves?

6. The connection between actions, thoughts and behaviour.

7. Is the world completely deterministic or can there be room for free will.

8. The role of faith and belief vis-a-vis the scientific explanation of events.

The presentation and discussion opened up interesting, opposing and contested points of view which was joined in whole-heartedly by the entire group including some of our differently abled members. The session witnessed many different ideas from the group like defining life as love and compassion, that the mind is nothing but our awareness towards the world and the soul is a continuum, a lifeforce. It was fascinating to see the group bring in arguments from various schools of thought such as positivist, realist, naturalistic and historical. Intense brainstorming allowed the group to reach both consensual and individualistic conclusions.

The session closed with the story of Socrates' trial and his saying "I know that I know nothing" stressing the importance of acquiring the method of rationality and a constructive skepticism.

Samavesh - Inclusion is a noun.

Gitanjali writes about her interaction with three organisations from Baruch, Gujarat and draws parallels to what Snehadhara is out to achieve. 

We hosted a team of three organisations from Bharuch District- Gujarat today. Kalpana Ben, a special educator with Sarva Siksha Abhiyan in Bharuch, Ajit Bhai and Jivi Ben from Viklang Parivartan Sangathan (VPS), and Dinesh,Sanjay and Jyoti from Aatapi Seva Foundation. VPS is advocacy group initiated by leadership of persons with disabilities in Jambusar Block. Aatapi is working in Jambusar Block of Bharuch District -Gujarat. Aatapi strives for comprehensive and inclusive development of socially and economically marginalized rural communities.

The purpose of their visit to Snehadhara is to understand how we work using the Arts to achieve learning outcomes and how one could approach inclusion as holistic learning. We will be facilitating a two day workshop for them that would give them a glimpse of what we do, understand the methodologies at a broad level and also be a part of some of our sessions.

The challenges faced by them in working with special populations, the support offered by the government, the acceptance of children with special needs in mainstream schools, the lack of specialised services for the disabled, the minimal understanding and implementation of government schemes and the big problem on empathetic and skilled human infrastructure; all of this echoed the problems of the many of us working in this space.

How do we address this huge developmental deficit? School systems have traditionally stressed the importance of teaching all children in a uniform manner. This has made it difficult for them to include those children – such as those with learning disabilities – who learn very differently. In fact, schools are belatedly recognizing that they are also leaving behind many students who are in class, but who too need to learn differently from the uniform approach that they’ve adopted. Lack of inclusion in traditional learning systems, is stemming from their lack of diversity in how these systems see ‘learning’. Clearly the present model of inclusion is not working and one has to look at an integrated system of learning.

We,at Snehadhara, are set out to take creative interventions into classroom settings to introduce diversity of learning approaches. This approach would look at two dimensions in schools: help effectively to steer the learning of all their students, and enabling them, in the process, to be more inclusive of children with learning disabilities. There is a need to look at large scale adoption of this pedagogy by amalgamating the practices of arts based teaching in the classroom to achieve both academic and therapeutic goals.

Having spent time today with the team from Gujarat, it is humbling to see that in remote villages of India there are people who are set out to give it their all fighting challenges- systemic, personal, financial, and socio-economical.

As an individual working in the field of education, as an organisation, as a special needs adult/parent, as an institution, as a corporate house, as an NGO, as a policy maker, each one of us has a role to play in building this ecosystem.

The enormity of the challenge cannot stop one from addressing it.