Activities of 2008

PHOTO : The Awareness programme at Scholar's Home, attended by Students of the Senior School. The Film "A .for Autism..." was also shown.
An Awareness program was held at the Institute of Educational Leadership, in Nimbuwala, Dehra Dun. It was well attended by the 1st & 2nd year students of Mass Communications, Faculty & the Director, Mr Manish Mumgai, was also present. The film “A for Autism… M for Mouse was screened & questions were asked after the presentation. The students & Director were very motivated & promised further help to the cause. This was followed by the Rally held on the 2nd of April,’08.

WORLD AUTISM AWARENESS DAY’ ‘08

It was the 2nd of April, 08. Gandhi Park in the heart of Dehra Dun, was all colourfully decorated, and the song “Taree Zameen Pe” was playing, for all the stars of this day’s show- the special children of some of the special schools of Dehra Dun, and the young men & children with Autism from Inspiration Centre. Yes, it was the WORLD AUTISM AWARENESS DAY! The U.N. General Assembly has declared the 2nd of April each year as the World Autism Awareness day, on the 18th of Dec’07. It is now common knowledge, that autism has taken on epidemic proportions, due to environmental & other triggers, and cannot be ignored by the government & society at large. So all concerned, in all parts of the world had taken on the duty of spreading awareness by holding rallies & meetings in their own states & cities, on this day. As INSPIRATION has been focusing on this condition from the very beginning, we had decided to invite all special & regular schools & institutes to join in this Awareness Rally, on the 2nd of April, at Gandhi Park, at 9am, so that more is known about the condition, which could help in tackling this at an early stage.

PHOTO : The rally was attended by students & staff of the Institute for Educational Leadership, as well as students & and parents of special children.

PHOTO : View of the rally with the Clock Tower at the background
The Disability Commissioner, Mrs. Snehlata Agarwal, flagged off the Rally, along with Dr. A.K.Srivastava, The Principal, DAV Intercollege. The Director of Institute for Educational Leadership, Mr Manish Mumgai was present with all the staff members & students to show their solidarity for the cause of the Autistic Children. Students & staff of special schools, The Ngoenga Tibetan Special School, & Bajaj Institute of Learning were well represented by the staff & students. The rally started at 10 am from the Gandhi Park & along Rajpur Road, through Parade ground, Ashley Hall & back to Gandhi Park. During the walk, lot of information was given about autism, in Hindi & English. The students sang songs, and it was a big surprise to all, that the students with autism, were able to participate in the March, without any trouble, well aided by their buddies from the Institute of Educational Leadership The Rally was led by The President & the Vice-President of Inspiration, which is now a Parents’ Association. A short Cultural Program was put up, and refreshments were distributed to all present. All the major local dailies covered the program in their respective papers. The Disability Commissioner, also the Additional Commissioner of Social Welfare Department, has promised to extend full support for the cause of Autism Awareness in the State of Uttarakhand.

SUMMER CAMP ‘08

A SUMMER CAMP was held at the Inspiration Centre in Dehra Dun, where students came from Delhi, Allahabad, Nainital & Haldwani. Four children –age ranging from 4-13 years benefited from The INSPIRED MOTHER’S TRAINING, where they came to stay from 15 days /1 month for round the clock training. The mothers went back happy & empowered to cope with the life skills & behaviour problems of the children.

AUTISM/IT WORKSHOP’08

An ‘Autism-IT Workshop’ was organized by Inspiration and The Anil Karanjai Memorial Trust. The inauguration took place at the Institute for Educational Leadership, Nimbuwala (Kaulagarh), Dehra Dun, on Monday, 9th June, 2008. The Chief Guests were The Director of IEL, Mr. Manish Mamgain, and the Guest of Honour was the Principal of the DAV Intercollege, Dr A.K.Srivastava. The workshop was held from 9th -14th June, at the IEL.The participants were autistic children from Delhi & Dehra Dun. It was conducted by Mr. Richard Banbury, Director, RAB Info, Dehra Dun, in collaboration with Dr. Arun Mehta, the well known computer scientist from New Delhi. This workshop was a part of the Summer Camp being organized by Inspiration, for the whole of June’08. PHOTO : Students at the workshop in the Institute for Educational Leadership

This is a follow on to the path-breaking experimental workshop, held in May, 2006 under the auspices of the Information Technology Development Agency, Dehra Dun. As a result of it, we all gained many insights into the ways that IT may help the autistic to communicate, as well as into the difficulties they face in working with computers. These insights were applied at the present workshop. It may be recalled that Arun Mehta has considerable experience in IT and disabilities. He entered this field when he was commissioned to upgrade the voice synthesizer of the world renowned physicist, Professor Stephen Hawking. He has since worked extensively with visually impaired students and children with cerebral palsy. Moreover, since the 2006 workshop, he has been developing software for children with cerebral palsy and autism. This software was tried out at the present workshop.

AWARENESS GENERATION IN INSTITUTES IN DEHRA DUN & NAINITAL

As a regular part of training ,Inspiration has had the three –pronged approach—Training of ParentsTraining of teachers/students in schoolsTraining of society, in general .The Director has now started targeting the renowned residential schools in Nainital. She was given the offer to do sensitization programmes in 4 schools there, Longview Public School, St. Mary’s Convent, The Holy Angels, St John’s School PHOTO : The Director answers queries of the parents at St. John's School in Nainital.

She also did a sensitization programme with the Teachers of Army School, Birpur, Dehra Dun. She spoke to teachers groups & students separately, on 22nd / 23rd of July’08. In one school she was invited to speak to parents also. All these schools found the talk highly beneficial, and have asked to have more such programs in future. She will be showing the film ‘A.. For Autism, M… for Mouse in the next phase of programmes. She was invited by the District Magistrate to train the grass root level workers of the ICDS scheme of the Govt. PHOTO : The Anganwari workers of the ICDS in Haldwani being trained by Director.

This will be followed by a free Training Programme for parents in Nainital , supported by the Chairperson of the Municipality, at the end of September ’08.