Project History and Mission

Founded in November 2008, the Hariksha learning center is the first of its kind in Avalurpet and the surrounding villages - catering approximately to 30 children with cerebral palsy and/or mental retardation (CP/MR). The project is in an area that has a population of about 130,000 people and that is characterized by poor awareness and callous attitude towards CP/MR. According to the recent SSA survey, there are about 54 children with cerebral palsy and mental retardation in this area. Many of these children are often ill-treated by their parents, who tend to leave their child unattended for prolonged hours, and in extreme situations beat and/or tie their child with a rope in an attempt to control the child's aggressive behavior. Such lack of care and intervention has been the motivation behind the formation of the Hariksha learning center.

The Hariksha learning center focuses on providing basic developmental skills in terms of hygiene, motor skills, physical therapy, special education and other kinds of therapy as appropriate to children with CP/MR. Further, the learning center helps its children in obtaining the national identity card and other eligible benefits from the Government of Tamil Nadu. This has conventionally been an issue, as the parents of the affected children have mostly given up due to their repeated trips to the district headquarters with no positive outcomes.

It is well known that special children take a very long time to pick up skills (for example: holding a pen, saying a word, etc) that we might consider basic and natural. This implies that any project for such children should have to be a long-term effort and the Hariksha learning center has requested a three-year commitment from Asha. The learning center’s primary long-term goal is to get to a stage where they can provide vocational training to make these children independent. Another goal is to create awareness among parents and family to ensure that the learning center’s efforts are supported in the home environment as well.

WAH Budget Proposal

More on Hariksha

Innovation: An innovative aspect associated with the Hariksha learning center is its close interaction with the families of the affected children. It is well known that the rehabilitation of CP/MR children is a strong function of the conditions prevailing at their homes. This is even more pronounced in villages, where parents are typically poor and often ill-treat their children due to lack of awareness. The staff at the Hariksha learning center conduct bi-weekly field trips in an effort to maximize the inclusiveness of the parents in the rehabilitation process. These field trips are designed to increase awareness amongst the parents and enable continuing care of these children, when they return home from the learning center.

Quality: Since its inception, the quality of medical care provided to children has consistently improved. For instance, periodic medical camps, dental camps and eye camps are conducted to assess the children’s general health, dental health and vision respectively. Further, the children are provided with needed medical assistance for their epileptic problems and other seasonal medical ailments. Till date, 116 physician visits have been supported to improve the health of the children. Further, the learning center staff conduct bi-weekly field trips in order to increase the awareness amongst parents of the affected children. Moreover, the overall efficiency has improved, as the learning center continues to learn from its experiences since inception.

Sustainability: While the learning center is unlikely to achieve complete financial self-sustenance within the next one year, it has taken a few critical steps towards achieving long-term self-sustenance. One such initiative is the formation of a parents self-help group, KALKI, where parents donate a certain amount of money every month towards the formation of a common fund that can meet their emergency needs on the basis of mutual help. The learning center uses collective wisdom and peer pressure to ensure proper end-use of credit and timely repayment. Typical monthly contributions received per family are less than Rs.200. The learning center has recently identified a donor, who has committed to matching the contributions received on a rupee for rupee basis. This will serve to increase the responsibility of the parents, while increasing the common pool of money - providing more borrowing power to meet the needs of their children.

Success Stories:

One warm day in December 2009, Manimegalai, a 17-year old girl affected by hemiplegia - a rare condition in which half of the body has compromised motor functions, stood up to participate in the state level sports meet, being organized as part of the World Disability Day celebrations in Chennai. Although she had trained for almost a month to prepare for this event, she began to sweat, looking at the crowd. All the days practicing with her teachers at the Hariksha learning center seemed to lead up to this moment. But like every other disabled person participating in that sports meet, she just wanted her efforts to be recognized. Despite feeling nervous, she managed to navigate her way through the race. And the following day, she was featured in the local newspaper, for being the only person from her entire district to win a prize in this prestigious event.

Flash back to the summer of 2008 when Manimegalai was a dormant child affected with cerebral palsy, who had minimal hopes of her future. She was diagnosed of hemiplegia - a form of cerebral palsy, which paralyzed the right side of her body and caused serious difficulties with her speech, preventing the local schools from admitting her. Manimegalai’s parents, who work as day laborers in the nearby farm in Avalurpet, a small village located at the borders of Villupuram and Thiruvannamalai districts in Tamil Nadu, had completely lost hope, as a special child is a great burden for them to shoulder. Further, Avalurpet and the surrounding taluks lacked any rehabilitation centers for special children. Manimegalai, unlike her counterparts in cities, was growing up with minimal access to proper rehabilitation that is essential for even the slightest improvement in her condition. And a solution to her problems came in the form of Hariksha learning center, which has provided rehabilitation facilities to Manimegalai and thirty similar children in Avalurpet and the surrounding areas.

It is not an overstatement to say that the Hariksha learning center was predominantly responsible for Manimegalai’s transformation to being the role model for other special children. The trajectory of Manimegalai’s growth has certainly been impressive, but not exactly unheard of. Like Manimegalai, there are at least 5 other children at the Hariksha learning center, who have made impressive progress over the last two years.

There is a positive perception of the Hariksha learning center in the local village community of Avalurpet and the surrounding villages. This is clear from the large number of requests to admit new students to the learning center. Currently, there are about 21 children waiting to be admitted into the Hariksha learning center. In fact, the word of mouth publicity that largely developed as a result of Hariksha's success stories, has already revealed many more CP/MR children than were identified during the SSA survey.

Manimegalai, in the meantime, has consistently built up her skill set that will one day enable her to be completely independent and be successful in a vocational job. This possibility is becoming real mainly due to Hariksha's staff, who shows great dedication as they work for substandard salaries in rural conditions, while serving the most disadvantaged children in this society.

Relevant Resources: