Strides Newsletter Archives
- Counseling & Assessments
- Early Intervention
- Kaleidoscope Learning Center
- V-Excel Educational Trust
- Occupational Therapy
- V-Excel Remedial Center
- Satellite Centers
- Vocational Training / Youth Empowerment Services
Counseling & Assessments
From Parimal Pandit's Desk
June has been a busy month. The therapies with KLC and other children are settling down. Puja has started her work with KLC children and had more than 15 children every week for writing, 5 children for individual sessions of painting, and 6 teachers for mentoring and counseling. Group play therapy has started for KLC children with Puja, Greeshma and Shaira.
Puja and Shaira will work with the trainees of YES while Sarmishta and Greeshma will work with the parents.
Shaira and Greeshma met with VRC and started seeing the parents and will start play therapy with two children. There have been many consultations for the VTU and school admissions.
The counseling department has started Friday morning readings on child health. The first reading that was covered was that by Dr. Michaela Glockler from the the Calisco Conference Book.
Puja and I conducted an inservice for KLC teachers. The theme was Freedom and we started with a movement and then a biographical exercise where they had to share an incident or a moment in their life where they had felt free. We also explored what does this inner feeling of freedom do to your heart, will and thoughts and how to bring it in classrooms.
Our individual counseling with outside clients has started and we may have new association with other companies for counseling desks. Nalanda Way has asked us to work with 15 children who have some kind of disability.
I attended two conferences in the UK, one on Leadership and one on Train the Trainers of Anthroposophic Psychotherapists. It was painful to hear the problems and issues faced by children world over and how therapists are struggling to support and work with teachers of mainstream schools to bring in healing.
Early Intervention
Musical Start to the Year
Musical Start to the Year
The year started with a music programme by renowned musician Smt. S. Sowmya and her team. The event was planned to give a relaxed evening to parents and children. The children sat through the session and enjoyed the Music. Parents gave feedback that the music session was a good start to the new year. This was followed by an orientation session for parents. Parents were given insight into various activites happening at V-Excel. The parents were introduced to cafe samarth and enjoyed the hospitality provided by young adults of vocational training unit.
Children who have started attending regualr school this academic year have been shifted to supportive intervention programme. feedback on the home programme was given by parents and goals for this term set in line with assessment. EI unit is in the process of developing individual development programme for every child.
Tirunelveli Centre: Group programme for younger children started last year is continuing sucessfully this year too. This have led to start Group programme for young adults this year focussing on prevocational skills and functional academics.
Erode Centre:: The year has started with many children being referred by doctors and schools. Propose to start young children and young adult group programme. The aim of group programme is to facilitate school readiness, develop communication, social skills and pre- vocational training.
Kaleidoscope Learning Center
From Gita Bhalla's Desk
School began on the 8th for children and on the 1st for teachers after the summer vacation. All children settled down, junior school to the same rhythm if the day but the senior school which extended their hours by and hour and a half. Children of the senior school now finish school at four thirty. A new transition program was drawn up for the students with many vocations . Ten new children joined the school . We hope for a long and fruitful association with them.
This year our Grade One graduated to Grade Two, Grade Five to Grade Six and Grades Five, Six Seven into Vocations. Amongst the vocations the senior school have been introduced to Car Wash, Cooking, Hospitality, Farming, Housekeeping, Carpentry, External Therapy, Paper Making, Stitching and Paper Products.
Abhishek, Kailash and Aaqila, performed on stage in a public performance with a new group of volunteers with no guidance from their teachers. It was indeed a step ahead in embracing the world and our sincere thanks to Crea Shakti, the innovative enterprising and proactive group of young actors. A truly noble and inclusive gesture.
In another exciting venture we have a sports training by Dr. Paul and marathon running by Mr. Ganesh started. The efforts made by the management are truly appreciated and we look forward to a fitter and smarter KLC.
Our annual group art work for Founder's Day was completed and put up for the year 2016 - 2017.
Vasudha's birthday was celebrated with a unique music and movement presentation by the teachers and children.
Grade Seven has been doing an interesting Language project entitled "Wish, Wonder and Surprise". As a part of this, the children have written many short stories and undertook a visit to Swabhodhini School to visit two old students as a part of "surprise".
Sukrtam began their music classes with the children and remain an all time favourite with them.
KLC is gradually getting transformed into a cosier, more welcoming and theraputic environment with the addition of mobiles, branches and leaves adorning the corridor. Nature having entered in a big way makes the space look inviting and we hope it turns out to be calming for the students.
The school is still recovering from a few hard knocks like the absence of some teachers and children, the sad demise of Parvathy's Father (student of Grade Four). A few of our volunteers really rose to the occasion and have been helping us out over the last month. Special thanks to Spandana, who created a beautiful poster for Vasudha's birthday; Ruben who came back from Germany to visit and spend time with Grade Six, and Manasi a young student of Grade Nine who has been coming to sing for us.
V-Excel Educational Trust
Advanced Level- GuideStar India Gold Award
V-Excel has qualified for the "Advanced Level- GuideStar India Gold" award. This certifies our transparency until the end of 2016. GuideStar India launched the GuideStar India NGO Transparency Awards to recognise organisations that practise and voluntarily demonstrate their transparency and accountability in the public domain. GuideStar believes that there is a need to have awards to illuminate the transparency level of civil society organisations to inspire greater trust in their work and garner support for their cause.
Bhoomi Puja in Srirangam
A bhoomi puja for a new building to house the Abhyasa Kendra, the joint initiative of Kinchitkaram Trust and V-Excel, was held at Sriramapuram, Rayar Thope, Srirangam on June 3. The event was graced by the presence of Sri U. Ve. Velukkudi Krishnan Swami and was attended by Dr. Vasudha Prakash, Prof. Anand Jagadeesan, Ms. Charumathi Sriram and Dr. Prakash Natarajan of V-Excel. A huge thank you to all the En Pani donors who have so graciously contributed to setting up this center.
Crea-Shakthi
Crea-Shakthi is a theatre group committed to the cause of taking the craft to the next generation with special focus and attention provided to the training & skill development of heterogeneous groups between the age group 8 to 25. The Spotlight Initiative presents "Solitude" - Tales from the Ramayana on Sunday, the 26th of June. The event will be held at the Chettinad Harishree Vidyalayam Auditorium on School Road, R.A. Puram. Three of our children Abhishek Sanyal, Kailash and Aaqila are performing in this production. They have been practising since June 1st. The show begins at 3 p.m. Please come and join us in encouraging them. Be there by 2.45 p.m. as theirs is the first performance.
Tarang in Chennai
After a brief hiatus, our Tarang series of monthly concerts resumes this week with a Carnatic music performance by Shri Ashwath Narayanan. He will be accompanied by Shri K. J. Dileep on the violin and Shri Sumesh Narayanan on the mridangam.
Certificate Course in LD
V-Excel announces the commencement of a weekend Certificate Course in Learning Disabilities beginning from 16th July 2016. This course is specifically conducted on weekends so that professionals an avail and benefit from it. In addition, teachers from mainstream schools, home-schoolers, and parents can also benefit from this course as teaching strategies for language, math, child observations and other topics will help them have a holistic approach towards teaching.
Occupational Therapy
Happenings
- After the vacation, KLC children who were undergoing therapy sessions in the previous academic year are eagerly looking forward to attend this year as well. Many children on this years’ first session expressed the way they missed their therapy room and activities during vacation. - Newly admitted children were introduced to therapy program. They are getting adapted to the new environment day by day. - New assessments, short term goals setting and therapy plan implementation are the pyramids of June strides. - The overall timing the department works has been changed from 8.30 am to 6.00 pm covering 9 and a half hour. Therapy Consultation will be allotted in the morning to ensure sessions not getting affected. - Meeting with KLC and VRC staffs took place to discuss new programs for children and their maximum utility.
V-Excel Remedial Center
From Kejal Bakshi's Desk
June, was the month of connecting to all the students who were away for their summer vacations. Some of them joined us soon,some children will join us in the month of July. Children were happy to be back and were very eager to share their summer break stories. We did 4 new assessments. We have started with a group of four trainees, aged 31,16,18,16. We are working on their skills and also to make them ready for some vocational skill which will be then taken upon by Sreyes - Vocational centre at V-Excel Educational Trust. As the new year began, children anxiety to see more syllabus, parents worried, stressed, how to handle the behaviour were some of the issues with most of the parents. We decided to have one free counseling sessions for all the parents at VRC with our counseling department. This will really help us in working with the child as parenting, home atmosphere,diet,routine,emotional well being of the parents and the child are important factors in the process of learning. Few of the children are also referred for play/art therapy.
Satellite Centers
From Jayanthi Vishwanath's Desk
Our school reopened for the teachers on June 6th. Teachers prepared teaching aids and charts and got the classrooms ready to receive the children. Two children, Shardul and Mohammed Nooh from the Early intervention class have secured admission in regular school this year.
The children started coming to school from 9th June. We have 14 new children in the school this year. During this month, the teachers re-assessed the children and prepared the IEPs. The assessment of the new children have been done and all the children have been assigned for SI/OT/NDT.
Yet an other milestone was achieved when on 27th June 2016,with the inauguration of V-Excel Youth Empowerment Services in Nashik. The inaugural function took place in a new premise taken solely for Vocational Training center for young adults with disabilities. Speaking at the inauguration function of V-Excel’s Youth Empowerment Centre, the Chief Guest for the evening Mr. H.D. Aher, Vice-President of Mahindra and Mahindra said, “These persons must be supported and encouraged to be meaningfully engaged in work that they can do and enjoy. An inclusive and positive social environment is the first step to enabling persons with challenges to fulfill their potential.” The Guest of Honour for the event, Mr. Vijay Patil, Medical and Social Welfare Office, Nashik Zilla Parishad, added that although there is prejudice in society against persons with challenges, in reality they have a wide range of abilities. He reiterated that the community must come together and support good initiatives of this nature. He spoke of various schemes available for persons with special needs and asked parents to ensure that they take legal guardianship of their wards.
Updates from Solapur:
School reopened for students on 13th June 2016 Students welcomed with Rose Flowers and Chocolates.
Pratham Jadhav, a 12-year old boy joined our school he has ADHD and learning disability
World Yoga Day was celebrated in our center and yoga classes were conducted by Mrs. Rajani Bahirat.
Vocational Training / Youth Empowerment Services
From Usha Rajagopal's Desk
The VTU reopened after the summer break on the 1st June for the staff and the 6th June for the trainees. On day one.. It was review of the previous year and checking on our preparedness for this year. The various task analysis and evaluations were gone through and filed.
Day two onwards was preparations for the new curriculum in laundry and cafe Samarth. A detailed meeting was held with Margaret to decide the craft syllabus. A timetable was drawn up for the month of June.
Joint consultation with Rama for admissions to Kaustubh and Sreyes were done through the month. Two new young adults enrolled into the program at Sreyes.
On the 6th it was a happy and colourful day at Sreyes with all the trainees and their smiling faces and holiday stories. The conversation time was very lively. The unit now works slightly differently. With the need for functional academic training for both laundry and cafe Samarth, the morning hours are dedicated to this. Hands on work is done in the afternoons. Materials and flash cards are prepared by the trainees themselves as part of the academics class.
On Saturday, the 11th June, Cafe Samarth hosted the celebrity Smt. S. Sowmya and her group after the music recital. All the parents of children of EI were there. Though it was a tough experience for Latha with limited hands, she managed it quite well.
At Cafe Samarth, Saturday 18th June, was again a busy day with Kaushik's family, a group of almost 40 persons. All went well. Since the kitchen has been modified, work seems to have eased a bit. Thanks to Avani, Ajita's daughter who spent time with us earlier and gave us guidance.
Extended discussions with Gita, Vasudha, Parimal, Rama were had to put together a plan for the group which would be a Transition Group. Currently they work under VRC. Undertook a trip to Baroda to see a sanitary napkin production unit, study the process and check the suitability.
On 24th went for a recording at Puthiya Thalamurai channel with Charu to talk about V-Excel and its work with a little more focus on Vocational and young adults. Nandita and Yogeswari, who used to be regular trainees, have expressed their wish to come and work with Margaret mam on Tuesday's and Thursday's. Nandita will work at Cafe Samarth also. Shanthi will work closely with Latha in preparing the Samarth cafe group, henceforth.
Vijay Shravan, trainee at Kausthubam shows a lot of interest in craft and art. The parents also wish that he get some training in craft activities. Vijay, has started coming to Sreyes from 30th, Thursday. He will come twice a week , to do craft work with Margaret. The unit is working on order for thambulam bags, and book mark to be delivered next week..the first order for this academic year.
Youth Empowerment Services News - From Rama Nagarajan
In the month of June 2016, since it is a month of revision of previous year's learning in the vocational front, in PCB the module I and II were revised. From July 2016, module III will be introduced.
A visit by Rama and Jason to the Wassup Laundry facilities stressed the importance of hand wash and quality checkup. The visit was an eye-opener in knowing the systematic procedures to be followed in a professional laundry.
The seven trainees in the laundry have learnt the ironing of shirts and pants. Training of hand washing of the clothes has been introduced this month.
Trainees in the Mylapore unitl are being introduced to the operations of a commercial cutting machine, punching machine, shredder and lamination machine. Under close supervision, these trainees can now operate these machines indepedently. As a trial run, the trainees laminated V-Excel's new ID cards. In addition they also producted 8 notepads, 16 scribble pads for internal use at V-Excel. 40 notepads of 25 sheets each, and scribble pads of 50 sheets each were cut and sent to Sreyes for printing. Trainees have started doing spiral and wiro binding.
The trainees in YES have now become quite adept at making. Mrs. Smitha Kuttaya, the instructor, has now introduced bun-making this month. We also had an ad hoc demo on bun, bread and cookie making techniques by Mr. Veluswamy.