"V-Excel wishes all its well-wishers a very happy and enriching Diwali !!!"
V-Excel News
Luvmysib, our Sibling Forum, had organized a trekking to Nagalapuram hills in Andhra Pradesh in association with the Chennai Trekking Club (CTC) on 13th October. There were 35 volunteers from CTC and 22 siblings, all packed in a bus. The trekking involved climbing the hills, crossing many streams, and braving steep slopes. Though the siblings were tired climbing up the hill, the moment they saw the big pool with a waterfall, they got excited and refused to come out even for a short while to have their lunch! It was a relaxed day of fun and joy for the siblings. We thank CTC for organizing and sponsoring this trek, and also thank Hindu Downtown for publishing an article on this in the newspaper.
The Carnatic music concert for our special children has recommenced after a break. Dr. Sundar (vocalist) and his troupe performed at our Mandaveli premises. The children enjoyed it thoroughly, and not just kept their patience to sit quietly for about one hour, but even tapped to the beat of his bhajans! We sincerely thank Mr. S. Hariharan, our Advisor, who completely sponsored the event and has promised to continue doing so for many more musical treats.
Kaleidoscope Learning Centre
It has been a month of building relationships, enhancing social skills and making some new beginnings! The first term ended on a reflective mood, with children receiving their first term reports. These reports are like a road map to where we see them at the end of the year, what their individual strengths and weaknesses are, and where we need to give them special attention. Parents and teachers had many meetings, both formal and informal.
Prevocational, Grade 5 and 4 went out for a field trip and lunch with our enthusiastic volunteer Manivannan to celebrate his birthday! These visits and outings are an important part of social training for the young adults and we thank all teachers and volunteers who make this possible.
Navratri was celebrated with the usual dance and music. A very special day was also celebrated this year called the Amruth day! Amruth is an important member of the 'keeper of sacred hearts' class which is what Grade 5 students call themselves and spread messages of unconditional love in all their writings. The teachers and children followed a dress code and menu that Amruth outlined. It was a unique and fun celebration.
Academy for Teacher Excellence
At the request of Mrs. Sundari, our Managing Trustee, we conducted an in-service training from 15th-18th October. Our support staff members participated with great enthusiasm. Given that the program was directed towards the helpers, we aimed at giving an orientation on - What is Disability, Types of Disabilities, Activities for Daily Living (ADLs), Attitude of the caregivers, and Problems faced while working with special children. It gave them a sense of pride that they were given formal training and subsequently received participation certificates by our Director.
The Volunteers' Training which commences on the 3rd November and the three consecutive Saturdays. Please do inform your friends who may like to avail of this opportunity.
Our organization has also been given approval to run two IGNOU affiliated courses - a one year Early Childhood Special Education Enabling Inclusion course and a three month Awareness Training Program (AWT), both through Distance mode. Both these programs are scheduled to start on 16th January 2013.
Level 1 of the Counseling Course has been completed and we are now preparing for the second level. As a foundation, our focus initially was on the theory of various therapeutic approaches. We will now concentrate on the practical aspects of counseling and devote time to practice sessions and supervision of the cases.
Early Intervention Unit
Parent consultations and children's assessments are an ongoing process. The number of cases awaiting attention at any given point in time is many. This is primarily due to two reasons - one, owing to the severe dearth of specialized services of this nature, and two, is thanks to the increasing trend in early identification of developmental lags. Even this week, we have had two enquires for children who are less than a year old for early intervention services.
Another case in point is a three month-old child with Down Syndrome who was referred to us recently. For such young children, we try to offer appropriate remediation in the comfort of their homes. Hence the parent has been trained and a home-based intervention program has been designed for this child. A review every month will help us closely monitor the child's progress
V-Excel Satellite Centres
We have been meeting success at our Nashik Center with the children in different measures. One such case is of a non-verbal four-year old child with Autism who was non-verbal when he came in a year and a half ago; since the last two months he spells out letters when he sees them anywhere - TV ads, wall calendars, posters, books !
We enrolled two infants at Nashik this month, an eight month-old baby with cerebral gigantism who has skipped many a developmental milestone, and a five month old who has been getting epileptic seizures from the 3rd day after birth. Fortunately, we have Dr. Himani Dalmia, a Masters in Physiotherapy (Pediatric Neurology) handling these special children with lot of care and expertise.
V-Excel's newest satellite centre at Erode (Tamil Nadu, India) has started functioning formally from the 1st of October. We have equipped the center with professional staff and necessary equipment for occupational therapy and sensory integration. We would like to thank Bally Cares, a social initiative of Bally Technologies, for stepping forth to sponsor all the equipment. The center shall offer Early Intervention and Remedial services to children with developmental delays and special learning needs.
The demand for services of the above nature is evident from the fact that we already have around 45 enquires in Erode centre. We have commenced services to ten children who have started attending the program at our centre.
Our centre at Tirunelveli is more than a year old and has been able to establish good quality of services. However, it pains us to see the long distances that the parents have to travel with their children for the sessions and the high travel charges that they have to incur. While we are trying our best, we would welcome donors to come forth and offer support for these children.
This Teachers' Day, we hosted lunch for all the staff there. We also conducted workshop for the parents and staff.
V-Excel Remedial Centre
Children with LD (Learning Disabilities) come to us with severe lags, and so, even though they show progress in their skills, their grade level performance in exams does pose problems, language being the most affected. In this context, we are very happy to share with you that our student Lokesh has not only scored well in his quarterly exams, but has scored 75% in English!
It is indeed a matter of pride and happiness for us that one of our students who came in for improvement of attention and sitting tolerance, understanding of instructions and task completion has shown good overall progress and has joined an inclusive school from 1st October.
Three children from VRC, along with their two siblings, had gone on the trek organized by the Sibling Forum. Children were very excited, enjoyed themselves thoroughly, and came back beaming!
Two children who were attending remedial sessions have shown progress in their readiness skills and have joined our special school from the second term starting in the last week of October.
Rural Outreach Program
Our team heads visited Chennai for a review of the work and progress on our rural project. We are happy that the results have been very satisfactory, with many success stories.
We had a collection drive in Chennai for old clothes and these were neatly sorted and packed according to the men's, women's and children's dresses of different sizes for sending out to the villages. We would like to sincerely thank our donors for stepping forward to support this initiative.
Vocational Training Unit
Ms. Abinaya, a senior student of Bombay Jayashree, comes every Thursday for conducting music sessions with the students of VTU. She sings simple Bhajans which the students sing after her; she then sings kritis for the students who enjoy her singing. Not surprisingly, students look forward to Thursday for her sessions!
Navratri was celebrated with traditional Kolu, arranged by a few students with the help of staff, and a cultural program organized by a few volunteers. They packed the thamboolam bags needed for the festival and made sure every guest who came for the celebration left with these bags. The festive spirit was evident from the colourful traditional ethnic costumes worn by the students.
The Friday music program this month was a presentation of various popular bhajans by Dr. Sundar. Our students appreciated the event and enjoyed the musical treat.
This month, our students participated in a drawing competition. Interestingly, five students of the VTU attended Basket ball shooting which was held towards the Guinness World Record. All of them were thrilled to receive a participation certificates!
Counseling and Assessment Unit
Celebrations marked the month of October and ringed in the end of first term. We conducted an in-service for the teachers of our special school, KLC, with drama as the theme. It was great to see the teachers brave roles which were very different from their own nature.
We continue to see our corporate clients and counseled about 20 people at our off-site desk. At our Center, across all counselors, we saw 12 people. Teacher counseling continues as regular feature.
In the last week we have started the second module for the first batch of parents for Art Therapy. Parents seemed much more relaxed and got fully immersed in the activity. They expressed how useful it had been for them to let go and relax.
Contact Information
V-Excel Educational Trust
#1 Norton 2nd Street
Mandaveli Chennai 600 028
Tel: 91 - 44 - 24620243
91 - 44 - 24956373 E-mail us or visit us at www.v-excel.org
V-Excel Center for Research and Rehabilitation
(In assocation with S.V. Sarada Foundation)
50 Sreyes, M.G. Road
Shastri Nagar, Chennai 600 041
Tel: 91 - 44 - 24522061
91 - 44 - 24521986 E-mail us
Academic Concepts, Inc.
1403 Merrywood Drive
Edison New Jersey 08817
Tel: (732) 572-3748
Tax ID: 22-3632715 E-mail us
