Centre For Special Education

Our Centre for Special Education is dedicated to the education and rehabilitation of developmentally challenged children.

Handi Care Intl. built this centre in 2009 at Amar Seva Sangam in India. See below: “Birth of this commitment”

Our Centre for Special Education is dedicated to the education and rehabilitation of developmentally challenged children. The centre is currently offering special education services from to 80 children from ages 6 to 18 and to another 100 or more placed in “Parent Managed Respite Centres”.

“Since inception, 280 children have attended this special needs school constructed by Handi-Care Intl. The school is run by 12 special education teachers and equipped with modern educational tools, learning aids, an outdoor play area and therapy room to provide a holistic educational program for children with intellectual disabilities. With the effective teaching methodology, 15% of these children have been integrated into mainstream school”.

It is in full swing with activities ranging from specialized personalized education, Physiotherapy/Occupational Therapy, Yoga and Breathing practices, physical education and play time activities. There are 12 teachers qualified in special education, including speech therapists and other areas of expertise. Children are showing tremendous improvement and the results are extremely gratifying. 23 children are integrated into the regular school, yet assisted by special educators. All the teachers are qualified in various areas of special education and the class size is about 8 to 1.

In 2004, a group of volunteers headed by Dr.Dinesh Krishna participated in a needs assessment of disabled individuals in rural South India. The team identified the need for a centre for children with developmental disabilities. Dr.Dinesh Krishna and Kavitha Krishna wrote up an extensive proposal outlining the needs and the design and format of the school including the need to train exisiting staff in special education. For the project proposal, please click here.

Though it seemed like a lofty goal, our success with rebuilding Thonithurai after the Tsunami gave us a lot of hope and confidence and HCI board approved the proposal to raise funds for this project. Little did we know that the initial agreement we signed with ASSA for $80,000 which included the cost of teachers’ training in 2007, was going to be overthrown with an amended version of $130,000 within a year due to increased construction costs.

However, through cross country fundraising efforts, including large fundraising events in Toronto organized by Handicare Intl. and in Victoria organized by Dr.Dinesh Krishna – we were able to raise the money and he school has been built!

6,600 Sq. Ft. of rooms
8 Classrooms
Large Indoor Activity centre
Dining, Physiotherapy & Office Rooms
Outdoor Play / Exercise
Ramp for wheelchair access all around the outdoor play area
Washrooms

HCI raised and disburse $106,000 for the building and $10,000 for teachers’ training in the 2006-2008 period. This was possible mainly due to our compassionate donors, who came forward to sponsor one class room each, as listed below.

This is a training centre for Special Education in the entire district that will enroll and train new candidates and parents.
30 disabled children from the waiting will be joining the school, for a total enrolment of 100.
This facility includes separate rooms for each class grouped according to ability. Each classroom is equipped with educational tools and learning aids such as black boards, flash cards, charts, posters, kinesthetic materials, and other toys and games to support learning. Chairs, desks and other supportive furniture have been custom-built on site in order to suit the needs of students with physical disabilities.
One classroom will be devoted to job-skills training for older students.
80 other children from the Parent Managed Respite Centres will have access to and benefit from resources of CSE.
Properly structured support and training will be provided to the parents of children at the centre. This will help parents understand their child’s needs better and be able to participate in their education.
Additional training has been provided to staff members. The appropriate program for each staff member was determined based on previous education and experience.

Under this program, we inviteyou to sponsor children with various disabilities between the ages of 6 and 18.

How to sponsor a child under this plan?

There are 2 ways you can do this:

By an YEARLY sponsorship with $400 Cdn / US$ – You are requested to renew this every year, so the child under your sponsorship can be educated and rehabilitated without interruption.
By an endowment of of $2000 – 3 endowments are needed per child… There are options available for payment.. See “Payment Plan” at the end

We require 3 endowments of $2000 for each disabled or developmentally challenged child. The interest earned from each segment is applied to 3 categories viz;

Food and Clothing expenses (Amudasurabhi);
Education and Recreational expenses (Srividhya);
Medical and Rehabilitation expenses (Dhanvanthri).

The endowment sponsorships are permanent. The money will be kept in a fixed deposit . The interest will be used to take care of the food, clothing, education, medical and rehabilitation expenses of one child, until the child completes high school and progresses to college or vocational training.

The sponsorship will then be transferred to another child. The endowment fund created in your name will remain for ever to brighten the lives of many needy children. However, certain children with mental challenges, may never reach the stage to receive professional training and hence may need to be supported for life.

We gratefully acknowledge all our donors and sponsors who made this dream a reality…

List of Major Donors:

Mrs. Gita Sankaran & Family	Mr. & Mrs. Arun Kapoor
Karuppiah Suppiah & family	Ms. Georgina Roche
Dr. B. Ramaswami	Mr. & Mrs. Venu Thampi
Dr. & Mrs. Anilkumar & Shanthi Menon	Mr. & Mrs. Narayanaswamy
Pankaja Group	Mr. & Mrs. Mahendra Shah
Dr. & Mrs. Terry Papneja	Mr. & Mrs. Raghavan Sundaresan
Mr. & Mrs. Cadambi Sriram	Mr. & Mrs. Sekhar Iyer
Dr. & Mrs. Raj Tuppal	Mr. & Mrs. Sudhir Negi
Mr. & Mrs. Bhupatrai & Sarla Bhuta	Mr. & Mrs. Nara Manickam
Dr. & Mrs. Ramakrishnan, USA	Vani Pasupathy & Suneil Sastry
Dr. & Mrs. T.N. Krishnamurthy	Mr. & Mrs. Natarajan Iyer
Mr. & Mrs. Ravi Subramaniam	Mr. & Mrs. Vinod Arora
Chandran Ratnaswamy	Mr. & Mrs. Sam Krishna
Dr. Vamini Selvanandan	Mr. & Mrs. Raj Valliappan
Dr. & Mrs. Dinesh Krishna	Mr. & Mrs. Suman Ghai
Mr. & Mrs. V.I. Lakshmanan	Mr. Mrs. Pravin Ghai
Mr. & Mrs. Sunil Ghai	Mr. Mrs. Adaikkappan
Mr. & Mrs. Arun Luthra	Mr. Pankaj Dave
Mr. & Mrs. Naveen Seth	Mr. & Mrs. Gopi Menon
Mr. Ajay Koushik	Drs. Yegappan
Mr. & Mrs. R.K. Moorthy	Mr. & Mrs. Nalini Bhargava
Mr. & Mrs. P. Srinivasan	Ms. Nargiz Daya
Mr. & Mrs. N. Krishnamurthy	Mr. & Mrs. Praveen Ghai
Mr. & Mrs. S. Kalyanasundaram	Dr. & Mrs. S. Pasupathy
Mr. & Mrs. S.K. Mosur	Mr. & Mrs. S. Thiagarajan
Dr. Raghu Raman	Mr. & Mrs. Sundra Rajan
Mr. & Mrs. Ram Ramakrishnan	Mr. & Mrs. Vijay Bajaj
Mr. & Mrs. Srini B.Srinivasan	Mr. & Mrs. Vinod Verma
Mr. Gary Gurmukh	Mr. & Mrs. N.Raghunathan

Corporations & Advertisers:

JET AIRWAYS	Manas Metals
Hindu Temple Society of Canada	Raj Bassi
Bayer	Latha Sukumar
Sunlife Financial	South Asian Women’s Centre
Balan Manian	Ideal Tile & Carpet
Metratrade Ltd	Newmarket Volvo
Royal Bank	Maharani Fashions
Fundserv Inc	Thushari Suduvelikanda
GGI Ltd	Ian Kirby – Scotia Bank
The Sixtythree Foundation	Skylight Travels
Statebank of India (Canada)	5th Element
ICICI Bank	Remax – Dynasty Realty Inc.
S.V. Tek	Kannan Dental
Anjappar Chettinad	Neal & Massey Ltd
Purdue Pharma	Sultana Samosas
CIBC Wood Gundy