Mother Theresa Society for the Handicapped - enabled.in

Mother Theresa Society for the Handicapped

MAJOR AIMS OF THE ORGANISATION· Helping other people-family, members of the community to accept, respect, feel comfortable with, assist (only where necessary), welcome into their lives, provide equal opportunities for, and appreciate the abilities and possibilities of persons with disability.

· Creating a Situation that allows each person with disability to live as fulfilling, self-reliant, and whole a life as possible, in close relation with other people

· Helping other people-family, members of the community to accept, respect, feel comfortable with, assist (only where necessary), welcome into their lives, provide equal opportunities for, and appreciate the abilities and possibilities of persons with disability.

Brief History

Udumalpet is a rural town situated at south east of Tamil Nadu State, South India
surrounded by hundreds of villages where the prevalence rate of disability is high
due to number of reasons like lack of awareness, malnutrition, consagenious marriages, and poor intervention facilities.

“Serving Hands are Holier than the Lips that Speak”-said Mother Theresa.
Keeping in mind her dedicated service to the under privileged, Mother Theresa Society for the Handicapped-Udumalpet was started in April 1998.
The Founder of the Society Mr.Rexraj.L is a qualified Special Educator in Mental Retardation from National Institute for the Mentally Handicapped who motivated and joined with some parents of special children and started the society aiming to provide qualitative rehabilitation services to rural poor children with disabilities who are often unnoticed by many service providers.

Non-Discrimination Policy

People who are eligible to participate in the program at Mother Theresa Society for the Handicapped-Udumalpet are not discriminated against age, sex, disability, caste,religion,or political belief.

Mother Theresa Special School

Mother Theresa Special School-our Day Care Centre was started in June 1998 functions between 9 am and 4 pm providing Individualized Training to children with ·

Mental Retardation
· Autism
· Cerebral Palsy
· Speech & Hearing Impairements and
· Multiple Disabilities

Children in the age group 3-15 years are attending,learning to adopt a decent,deciplined life with the help of dedicated team of teachers,care givers who are tasked to mould these ‘special’ children. With the suppots like affordable parents contributions and local donations the centre is functioning for the last 7 years serving more than 40 children at present.

Through sytematic methods and materials, the centre provides intervention services in motor, self-help, cognition, communication, social and academic areas of development suitable for the children. Each year an average of 4 children integrated in to regular schools after Individualised training program at the center. The follow up reports show good performance of these children in the main strem.

Respite Care Home

Ignorance and indifferent attitude by family members including parents and differential treatment by neighbors and the society make the special child unwanted and insecure. Thus was born the Second Home cum Residential school, housing fifteen children with mixed levels of disabilities living under one roof especially cared by foster mothers who treat these children with love and care round the clock. Efforts are ongoing for a constructing permanent barrier free building for this purpose.
There are more than 50 children in the waiting list seeking admission for residential care, but the organisation strives to build barrier free home with adequate facilities for accommodating them.

Therapeutics

Children with motor dysfunction are given regular physiotherapy to build their capacity to move around in a more confidential manner, which is an integral part of basic needs. Children with communication disorders are provided adequate speech therapy and communication therapy to receive and express feelings & needs.
Necessary equipments for therapy services were bought with the help of philanthropists and used for the development of the suffering children. Particular attention is paid to provide the children adequate opportunity to develop all their skills including motor coordination, speech and language development.

Pre-vocational Training

Mainstreaming the disabled youth through vocational rehabilitation process and building their productive skills make them move towards economical independence. Children above 15 years are provided prevocational training in selected trades such as Tailoring, Embroidery, Handicrafts and Toys making.
Continuos efforts are ongoing to setup a Vocational training cum sheltered workshop with great hopes and aspirations.

Community Based Rehabilitation

To reach the unreachable, community based rehabilitation activities ranging from promoting awareness to preventive measures where parents specially the mothers and mothers-to-be are educated to avoid the birth of the disabled child into the unfortunate world where they would be treated as a curse and unwanted.

Efforts are taken to assist the families affected to manage the child well with the existing socio-economic setup through promoting ‘Special’ Mothers Groups. With the help of German Consulate, Chennai, an Income Generation Unit (Dressmaking) is established for the poor mothers who accompany with their special kids. Through the CBR programme hamlets in three blocks in and around Udumalpet are covered reaching to more than a million population. There is a demanding need to start other integrated welfare and development programmes, which are family and community based.

Project-‘Varam’

VARAM is a project implemented by our organization in which children at high risk for disabilities will be helped to develop the basic living skills such as motor movements, communication and cognitive skills.
Early Intervention is a planned and organized effort to enhance the development of small children who are at risk of developmental delay or further delay due to intellectual, motor, sensory or other impairments.
Early identification and intervention make the project more effective and less cumbersome. Major objectives of ‘Varam’ are:
· Enhancing child development and minimize potential delays.
· Reediting existing problems and preventing further deterioration.
· Limiting the acquisition of additional handicapping conditions.
· Promoting adaptive family functioning.
Children age ranging 0 – 5 years and found with high risk factors identified and referred by Pediatricians, Neurologists, Community health workers and parents.

The model of service delivery is combination of home and center based. Efforts are on going to expand the programme as community based one and increase the number of beneficiaries through New born screening camps.

Networking & Campaigning

Creating an impact on the lives of common citizen about the need to accept and respect the rights of a less fortunate child becomes a dream turning reality, which is attempted through public campaigning and networking to win the hearts of million.
Through campaigning large groups of the cross sectional population are covered both young and old, rich and poor with no discrimination of status or symbol where the problems of the special children is especially difficult circumstances are also addressed.

Human Resource Development

In the field of disabled rehabilitation there is a huge demand for rehabilitation personnel especially for working at rural areas. We have conducted a six months Care Givers course for 10 rural poor women candidates which is sponsored by National Trust for the welfare of persons with developmental disabilities, Government of India in which we are a member organisation and the course is recognised by Rehabilitation Council of India. The trained candidates are engaged in rehabilitation services in our rural region.
Besides regular training programmes are conducted for parents and staff members by inviting external resource persons from like-minded organisations.

Other Areas of Concern


Our Organization under its fold apart from organizing welfare programmes for the special children has also identified other areas, which are equally demanding like,
· Welfare of senior citizens
· Rural Preventive Health
· Protection of Environment
· Women Empowerment
A foster home for special children has been planned with the senior citizens who are willing to extend their tender Love and Service for those who crave to be cared.

Needs and Request


We deliver our heart full thanks to all kind hearts who support the services for children of God. We put our humble appeal for the following needs,
§ Continuous support for special school and on going activities.
§ Constructions of barrier free own building for the special school, residential care home.
§ Organising community based early intervention programme at remote villages.
§ Setting up sheltered workshop to provide employment opportunity for youth with disability. (Example: diary, food processing etc.)

Contact :

Address : 375,Palani Road,S.V.Mills(post),
Udumalpet-642128, Coimbatore (Dist.)
Tamilnadu, India.

Legal Status : Registered non-profit Society.

Registration Details : S.No.47/98, Dated: 4 May1998, Under
Tamilnadu Societies Regn.Act.

2225/CP-MR-MD/2001, Under
National Trust Act, Govt. of India.

Tax Exemption Status : Registered under section 12A as charitable
organisation and section 80G of IT Act for
tax exemption status.

FCRA Status : Registered under Foreign Contributions
Regulation Act, Ministry of Home Affairs,
Govt.of India. (Reg. No. 075850169)

Nature of Governing Body : Parents of Special Children, Rehabilitation
Personnel and Well wishers.

Chief functionary : Mr.Rexraj.L, President/ Director.
(A post graduate in Sociology, qualified
Special Educator in Mental Retardation
National Institute and Registered
Rehabilitation Practitioner- Rehabilitation
Council of India.)

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