Ramasamy

Ramasamy is a friendly, active boy who is almost 15 years old now. He is diagnosed with Mild Intellectual Disability, ADHD, and speech delay. He was identified by our Special Education on Wheels team during the survey of surrounding villages last summer. He attended a normal government school, where he was unable to cope both with the setup and the studies. In June 2016, he was admitted to Udayam. At the time, he was very stubborn, had a poor attention span, and sitting tolerance and his social skills were grossly inadequate for his age.

Today, his compliance level has improved significantly; he not only cooperates with his teachers but also helps his friends. His sitting tolerance and attention to the task have improved to a great extent (he needs occasional monitoring though). He is verbal but his speech is not clear. His social communication skills have improved and is independent in self-care. Even though his academic abilities are low, he managed to learn the prerequisites for vocational skills — making paper bags, punching holes to file a paper, packing candles, etc.

Shivani

Shivani is a quiet 14-year-old girl, who prefers interacting only with familiar people. She is diagnosed with cerebral palsy, intellectual disability, and microcephaly with a seizure disorder. She has two siblings — a brother with special needs, and a sister. When she first joined Udayam 3 years ago, she was battling several challenges, including cognition and self-care disorders. She had poor hand functions and couldn’t effectively hold a pencil, preventing him from even copying any strokes. Shivani would also get startled and fall because of loud noises and sudden movements. With our structured and consistent program, she has shown considerable improvement. She can now hold a pencil correctly and copy numbers and alphabets. Now. she is completely independent in self-care and interacts well with other children and teachers. Her falling has also reduced drastically. Her mother says that she often helps her with simple domestic chores when asked to do so.

Petty shop

Today, 21-year-old Sathya, our School student, runs in his shop, talking to his customers and counting out change in his small village.

She has been successfully running the shop since last year, with the help of his mother and siblings. Sathya has been a student of our school for the past six years, and his father works as a daily wage worker in the nearby town.

At the time of our Consumers Day awareness program, no one would have known he would be running a shop when he was participating in the center’s, where we set up a mock petty shop, to make the students understand the concept of weights and measures, and expiry date.

That night, she told his parents his intention: he wanted to start a petty shop. Her supportive family decided to take the plunge and set a shop up for him. She loves her new business and her father, says that apart from certain physical fine motor activities like handing over eggs to customers, he is able to do everything on his own. The community too, supports Sathya’s shop!