Jan 2005 : S P J Sadhana – School for Mentally Challenged (No FCRA)

S.P.J. Sadhana School for the Developmentally Challenged

The SPJ School, situated in the Sophia Campus at Bhulabhai Desai Road, teaches 125 mentally challenged children to learn how to lead the type of lives we lead. Studying, doing the normal everyday activities, and earning a living later. I have been most impressed by the school, faculty, 125 students, and volunteers. Do see their details at www.yougivemewings.org. If you want a brochure, email your full address to ssadhana@hathway.com. I would recommend you to visit the school with your family to see how it works. That’s a learning and humbling experience by itself.

Vinay, Karmayog.com

Ever since its inception, over 31 years ago, the S.P.J. Sadhana School has worked ceaselessly toward helping the mentally challenged individual, not only to learn to adjust to the world around, but more — to become a useful member of the human community, independent and self sufficient, with a contribution to make to society.

A highly trained team of teachers and professionally qualified therapists each of whom has hands on experience in the field, look at other aspects of mental retardation, such as the benefits of nurturing the special talents each individual manifests and encouraging the student to work on them. For it has been found that given what they like doing, they perform well. Arising out of such challenges, special teaching strategies and unorthodox technologies are developed and are constantly reviewed and upgraded. The goal is to transfer as much learning as possible, to make the learning process enjoyable to moulding it to the individual student’s needs and to elicit the maximum satisfaction from it, both to the teacher and the taught. Years of such experience have crystallized into a five-year vocational course, which, while tapping a trainee’s special gift and fostering it, aims to equip that student to be launched into a self-reliant and productive life. The course covers training in art and crafts, tailoring, fast food cookery, and office skills. Concurrently, during these years of training, equal stress is laid upon employment criteria: correct behaviour in work situation, communication and self-help skills. All this is towards the end of placing the student in a compatible work situation.

Some ways in which Volunteers can collaborate with the training of the mentally challenged:

1. Sponsor a child: Rs.12,200/- per annum./Lunch Rs.4950 per annum
2. Donate to Teacher’s Salary Corpus : V. URGENT
3. Placement for internship and jobs.
4. Orders for Art department/Catering and office skills to help training and working with deadlines.
5. Microphone – Stereo …. Lapel mikes
6. Electronic Walker (Gym equipment -foldable)
7. A Sony CD player for Auditory Integration Therapy Rs.10,000/-
8. Electronic kit to upgrade our piano to be functional without upkeep costs Rs.45,000/-
9. Video Cassettes for camcorder – 100 nos. – – – Rs.20,000/-
10. Coloured Xerox Machine about Rs.10 lakhs … any amount towards it will be gratefully received. It will be used for training and to generate much needed income.
11. Cover maintenance contracts of equipments e.g. Computers, Xerox machine, Lift, Water Cooler about Rs.2 lakhs per annum.
12. Sponsor an Event: School Magazine/School-Staff Student Picnic/Christmas Concert.
13. Any amount towards creating a new audio visual Video /CD for Graduation .. cost about Rs.10 lakhs.
14. Volunteers to teach Computers.

Our Plans for the near future

– A concert planned for October 20, 2004 – sponsor needed for Rs.45,000/-
– Annual Exhibition and Sale of the children’s work to be held on 9th and 10th December 2004
– Graduation of the Students who have completed the 5-year Polytechnic course

Yours sincerely,

Sr. E. Gaitonde
Principal
S.P.J. Sadhana School for the Developmentally Challenged
Dr. Rosendo Ribeiro Complex
Sophia College Campus
Bhulabhai Desai Road
Mumbai 40 026
Tel: 23510853 / 23517913
spjsadhana@gmail.com

“A wealth of individual and collective responsibility is untapped in every community. When engaged, this responsibility provides phenomenal levels of local energy and creativity, which, under the right conditions, can transform not only that place, but also help to transform the context. The context and the place are interconnected. Society itself, with its rich tapestry of diverse stakeholders, deserves to be treated as the whole and intricate system it is, as do the people who inhabit the system.”