Centre for Special Education

Centre for Special Education for
Children with Special Needs - Built and Inaugurated May 2009
Updated - 2020

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.

Click here to view HCI’s Sponsorship of Children at the Centre

Click here to view list of completed children.

 

Adopt A Child in Special Education

Under this program, we invite you 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;
  1. Food and Clothing expenses (Amudasurabhi);
  2. Education and Recreational expenses (Srividhya);
  3. 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.

 

 

Our children have won several prizes and medals at state level competitions in singing, dance and sports.
Photos taken during the Annual Day function (Jan 5,2010)
Our Building “CENTRE FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION” is completed and was inaugurated on May 8, 2009 at Amar Seva Sangam campus.

CENTRE FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION – A DREAM COME TRUE PROJECT!!
Salient Features of the Centre:

  • 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.

More photos of the building

Inauguration Photos
Front View with Ramp for wheelchair access Side View of the Centre – Backside of class rooms
Directors from HCI at inauguration with Swami Dayananda Saraswati Meena Suppiah with Swamiji
CSE Annual day Jan 5, 2010 CSE Annual day Jan 5, 2010

We need sponsorships for the children, 100 of whom will be placed in our new centre within the next few weeks. We welcome you to take a look at some of the children awaiting sponsorship by clicking here.

Click here to read the souvenir we published for the fund raising event.

Birth of this commitment
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!
It is more than just a school !!

  • 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.
For a detailed proposal, please click here.
We gratefully acknowledge all our donors and sponsors who made this dream a reality…..

List of Major Donors:
1 Mrs. Gita Sankaran & family 31 Ms. Georgina Roche
2 Karuppiah Suppiah & family 32 Mr. & Mrs. Venu Thampi
3 Dr. B. Ramaswami 33 Mr. & Mrs. Narayanaswamy
4 Dr. & Mrs. Anilkumar & Shanthi Menon 34 Mr. & Mrs. Mahendra Shah
5 Pankaja Group 35 Mr. & Mrs. Raghavan Sundaresan
6 Dr. & Mrs. Terry Papneja 36 Mr. & Mrs. Sekhar Iyer
7 Mr. & Mrs. Cadambi Sriram 37 Mr. & Mrs. Sudhir Negi
8 Dr. & Mrs. Raj Tuppal 38 Mr. & Mrs. Nara Manickam
9 Mr. & Mrs. Bhupatrai & Sarla Bhuta 39 Vani Pasupathy & Suneil Sastry
10 Dr. & Mrs. Ramakrishnan, USA 40 Mr. & Mrs. Natarajan Iyer
11. Dr. & Mrs. T.N. Krishnamurthy 41. Mr. & Mrs. Vinod Arora
12 Mr. & Mrs. Ravi Subramaniam 42 Mr. & Mrs. Sam Krishna
13 Chandran Ratnaswamy 43 Mr. & Mrs. Raj Valliappan
14 Dr. Vamini Selvanandan 44 Mr. & Mrs. Suman Ghai
15 Dr. & Mrs. Dinesh Krishna 45 Mr. Mrs. Pravin Ghai
16 Mr. & Mrs. V.I. Lakshmanan 46 Mr. Mrs. Adaikkappan
17 Mr. & Mrs. Sunil Ghai 47 Mr. Pankaj Dave
18 Mr. & Mrs. Arun Luthra 48 Mr. & Mrs. Gopi Menon
19 Mr. & Mrs. Naveen Seth 49 Drs. Yegappan
20 Mr. Ajay Koushik 50 Mr. & Mrs. Nalini Bhargava
21 Mr. & Mrs. R.K. Moorthy 51 Ms. Nargiz Daya
22 Mr. & Mrs. P. Srinivasan 52 Mr. & Mrs. Praveen Ghai
23 Mr. & Mrs. N. Krishnamurthy 53 Dr. & Mrs. S. Pasupathy
24 Mr. & Mrs. S. Kalyanasundaram 54 Mr. & Mrs. S. Thiagarajan
25 Mr. & Mrs. S.K. Mosur 55 Mr. & Mrs. Sundra Rajan
26 Drs. Raghu Raman 56 Mr. & Mrs. Vijay Bajaj
27 Mr. & Mrs. Ram Ramakrishnan 57 Mr. & Mrs. Vinod Verma
28 Mr. & Mrs. Srini B.Srinivasan 58 Mr. & Mrs. N.Raghunathan
29 Mr. Gary Gurmukh    
30 Mr. & Mrs. Arun Kapoor    
       
CORPORATIONS & ADVERTISERS
1 JET AIRWAYS 21  Ideal Tile & Carpet
2 Hindu Temple Society of Canada 22 Newmarket Volvo
3 Bayer 23 Maharani Fashions
4 Sunlife Financial 24 Thushari Suduvelikanda
5 Balan Manian 25 Ian Kirby – Scotia Bank
6 Metratrade  Ltd 26 Skylight Travels
7 Royal Bank 27 5th Element
8 Fundserv Inc 28 Remax – Dynasty Realty Inc.
9 GGI Ltd 29  Kannan Dental
10 The Sixtythree Foundation 30 Neal & Massey Ltd
11 Statebank of India (Canada) 31 Sultana Samosas
12 ICICI Bank    
13 S.V. Tek    
14 Anjappar Chettinad    
15 Purdue Pharma    
16 CIBC Wood Gundy    
17 Manas Metals    
18 Raj Bassi    
19 Latha Sukumar    
20 South Asian Women’s Centre