In an effort to care for the mentally challenged children of the communities. Abhayakshethram opened a Special School in 1996, with 2 students.
The teachers have all been trained but the extraordinary thing about Abhayakshethram is the atmosphere of love which surrounds it and the extraordinary support it gets from its vibrant local support Association.
The special school for the welfare of mentally challenged children provides boarding and lodging facility in the hostel attached to the school, maintaining the children with care.
The present strength of the school is 110 from all over India.
We are providing behaviour modification of the mentally handicapped through the services of physiotherapy, speech therapy, music therapy, yoga therapy and special education techniques by a team of interdisciplinary teachers, whom we approached by paying visits, who are employed in other noted institutions.
Our institution “Abhayakshethram” is on of the institutions, which is running a hostel for the mentally handicapped children all through the year in this part of the country. The advertisements in newspapers and T.V. channels have mentioned again and again that our institution has a hostel which is providing free boarding and lodging.
Most of the parents will neglect their children and they left at public places like Temples, parks, railway stations etc.
“Abhayakshethram” has been providing special education to the mentally handicapped children through the efforts of our well trained staff, who are wall qualified in special education.
Training is provided to the children in vocational training like candle making, chalk-making, doll-making, paper-cup making, preparation of Vaseline and gardening etc.
A notable feature of our institution is “ours is the only organization in these parts of the country where we admit children in the school and/or hostel who are fully dependent on others because of their under-developed capacities and have always to be attended even for basic needs”. We provide for such needy children a life-long shelter and rehabilitation with residential staff attention and attention. We have children of such category. We feel happy and content with the lot.
If generous sponsors are forthcoming, we wish to support more mentally challenged children and extend the same facility to them. We have been making constant efforts in this direction also and we welcome such a gesture from humanitarian individuals, locally and from abroad.
Our institution is also interested in adolescent problems which need more attention. The period of adolescence is roughly between the ages of 13 and 20 years. Some times the adolescent problems lead persons to a kind of risk. The paramount risk is a tendency towards committing suicides. It runs maximum during the period of adolescence among mentally handicapped persons, when sharply rejected by the society, because it is the stage when failure is taken very seriously in the case of mentally retarded persons. Some of them are even prone to mental illness with no relief whatsoever.
We have some plans to go in for sheltered workshops, where note books preparation and dairy-farming can be taken up to produce easily marketable items.
We have train our students in daily living skills, who are unable to do their daily chores, like eating, dressing, grooming, and also toileting etc. The main purpose of this training programme is to infuse confidence in them, to make them feel that, they are quite efficient and can attend to their daily needs with more confidence then ever as the ordinary children of their age group and move in the society with some satisfaction facing challenges.
If such mentally handicapped children are given such attention by our experienced staff in such activities as mentioned above, the self confidence of the students will grow more and pave the way for the development of human resources aspect.
| Total | |
| Hostlers | 116 |
| Day Scholars | 30 |
| Total strength of the Institution | 146 |
