Abstract
Seva-in-Action a voluntary organisation started 3rd April 1985. It has made an attempt to understand the needs of people in rural areas and its relation to the community strengths in developing an appropriate Community Based Rehabilitation(CBR) & Inclusive Education (IE) models. It also thes to understand the children world (with disabilities) in the context of related educational structures that determine their lives, their development and individual growth and also promote the right to go to school.
Seva-in-Action has developed a cost effective, socio-culturally appropriate, comprehensive, sustainable & holistic Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programme aiming at total rehabilitation of all persons with disabilities (pwds) in rural areas of Kamataka, which can be replicated in the rest of the country (India).
Seva-in-Action a voluntary organization started in 3rd April 1985. It has made an attempt to understand the needs of People with Disabilities(pwds) in rural areas and its relation to the community strengths in developing an appropriate Community Based Rehabilitation(CBR) & Inclusive Education (IE) models. It also tries to understand the children world ( with disabilities) in the context of related educational structures that determine their lives, their development and individual growth and also promote the right to go to school.
Seva-in-Action has developed a cost effective, socio-culturally appropriate, comprehensive, sustainable & holistic Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programme aiming at total Rehabilitation of all persons with disabilities (pwds) in rural areas of Karnataka, which can be replicated in the rest of the country(India).
GOAL
Empowering Persons with disabilities(pwds) and parents of specially challenged children through Community Based Rehabilitation(CBR) & Inclusive Education(IE) programmes
The objectives of Seva-in-Action:
Seva-in-Action has initiated a range of rehabilitation services for pwds in rural areas of Bangalore and Kolar Dist. of Karnataka in order to achieve the above objectives - Early intervention programmes, pre-integration, Counselling & Guidance services to parents of pwds, Medical Rehabilitation & follow-up, Inclusive Education in existing schools, need based Vocational training and placement, organising Self-help groups of parents & adult pwds, involving community in all the activities and Training programmes to parents, CBR workers, regular school teachers, trainers and various levels personnel from Govt. & other NGOs. Besides this, close collaboration with Education, Women & Child Development, Health, Rural Development Departments in meeting the needs of pwds.
COMMUNITY ORGANISATION
Seva-in-Action(SIA) started preparing the community to meet the needs of pwds at community level using the existing Govt. & other infrastructure and strengths with in the community since inception. As a result of this local CBR Committees(CBRCs) were formed at village level. The local CBRCs comprises of parents of specially challenged children, adult pwds, teachers, agriculturists, doctors, advocates, business men, panchayath(local Govt.) members, house wives etc. SIA has all along functioned through village level CBRCs.
Specific training programmes have been organised for the local CBRCs with focus on CAPACITY BUILDING and inputs in planning & management of CBR programmes.
The ultimate aim of any CBR programme is to ensure that the programme is sustained by the local people. Sustained efforts in this direction since 1985 by SIA has now led to 10 CBRCs taking the OWNERSHIP of the CBR programme.
Presently, these CBRCs are able to plan and manage the CBR programmes at village level with minimal external support i.e only technical support by Seva-in-Action(SIA). The CBRCs are financially independent and are also able to raise funds to sustain the programme at local level. There is a network among all CBRCs of SIA who meet on various occasions and on regular intervals (i.e meeting second Saturday of every month) for exchange of information/ideas and also for advocacy. They are influencing the panchayaths and other local Govt. at community level.
The whole approach and strategy is towards mainstreaming and providing equal opportunities to both children & adults in the community itself to become independent members.
Implementation of the programme
SIA has transferred the rehabilitation technology in simple and appropriate terms to the local champions who are the CBR Workers(CBRWs) belonging to the same community. They meet the medical, educational, vocational and economic rehabilitation needs of pwds at the community level with support from the CBRCs. A holistic comprehensive and sustainable rehabilitation system is developed to meet 80% of the needs of pwds at the grass root levels.
CBRWs are chosen by the CBRCs and paid by them. They have 10 years of schooling and receive six weeks training which includes training in portage and in- service training for the following:
Besides this, they are undergone refreshers training programmes (short term) every year organised by SIA to update their knowledge in Rehabilitation. And also equip themselves to apply and adapt the basic skills to whole range of ages, starting from infants from few weeks of life to mature adults and individuals with profound & multiple handicaps in the community.
SERVICE DELIVERY SYSTEM
Early intervention programmE
Early intervention plays a major role in the lives of specially challenged children. It prevents the secondary handicaps and stimulates the children to learn. After identification there are various strategies to provide early education support where the needs of the families are given priority. The various approaches are:
Home Based Programme
This service is available for children up to 3 years of age and also for persons with severe disabilities. The CBRW visits homes to provide early stimulation programmes and training to parents or to the family members(siblings, grandparents etc.) responsible for taking care of the child. The family is the place where first lessons of caring & sharing are imbibed. This is the foundation for all our future relationships.
This enables parents to prepare their children at home for integration into pre-school/SHG centre.
Self-Help Group
SHG is a multi-purpose Centre which uses any place that is available in the villages like a classroom given by the regular school, temples, community halls and new buildings specially constructed for this centre on the place given by the community.
This centre offers counselling & guidance services to parents of pwds, function actively with the parents of specially challenged children to prepare children(3-6 years old) for integration into primary schools. If they are not eligible for integration, then they are prepared for vocational training. SIA's major consideration for vocational training skills are the family and community trades.
This centre provides medical rehabilitation services with the help of OUT REACH programme of NIMHANS and other Dist. hospitals & Institutions (viz., medicines, surgeries, aids/appliances & therapies).
It acts as a pre-school in villages where there are no pre-schools. It also provides Pre-vocational training for children over 16 years of age.
Besides this, it acts as a Resource Centre to provide educational support(Resource teaching support) to specially challenged children integrated in nearby regular schools.
The adapted portage checklist with how to do it cards is being used as a curriculum for 0-6 years children in both home based programme & in Self-help group.
PARENT'S ROLE
Parents play an important role in the progress of their children. They visit SHG Centre at least once in a week and assist CBRW in assessing, planning and teaching. Informal assessment is done by the parents who list the strengths and weaknesses of the child according to their knowledge and experience. Following the informal assessment, formal assessment is done by CBRW with the parents based on the portage checklist in the following areas:
The planning is done for a full year, which is then divided into half yearly, quarterly, monthly & weekly based on the formal assessment by CBRW & Parents based on the portage, curriculum for pre-vocational skills & school readiness according to the needs of the children.
Both Group & Individual Education Planning with the help of IEP & GEP forms will be done by CBRW. But Group Educational teaching is more common as it provides learning through imitation. An individual education plan is drawn up for children with severe difficulties or who can not learn in small group settings and those with difficulties in cognition & language.
Fortnight meetings with parents is done regularly and one to two days workshop on different disability issues are organised for parents at village level according to the needs. The
District level Parent meet is done at Block level every year on rotation basis.
Anganvadi Centre(AC)
AC is a Govt. run pre-school run through the Dept. of Woman & Child Development and providing children with early care and education. SIA works closely with the centres by integrating the specially challenged children here with the Resource Teacher support. These centres act as a preparatory centre for primary education.
SIA has developed a training model(1 week duration) for preparing Anganvadi Workers and their supervisors, primary school teachers and primary health workers and it was field tested in Manvi Block, Raichur Dist. of Karnataka under Early intervention project. We trained 223 Anganvadi wokers and 6 supervisors from Manvi Block in 5 batches(30th June 1997 to 24th August 1997).
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
Seva-in-Action has played a major role in making the existing education system responsible to meet the basic educational needs of children with impairments as 70% of the needs of these children are educational needs. In this process, Seva-in-Action has close collaboration with local regular schools from its inception.
After adequate preparation(school readiness) in the pre-integration set ups specially challenged children are integrated into mainstream education system in the nearby regular schools. These children are supported by a trained resource teachers through regular visits to the school. These Resource teachers underwent one year Multi-category Teachers Training Course in Integrated Education for Disabled children(IED). They assist the regular teachers in curriculum adaptation (in teaching approach, classroom management, teaching & learning materials & evaluation) for the effective learning of all children in the class. They also assist the management in adapting the school physical environment in order to make accessible to all children especially physically challenged children.
SIA has developed IE programmes in all Blocks of Bangalore and one Block of Kolar Dist. by sensitising the existing education system through training and providing technical support to children and teachers in regular classrooms. With all these efforts SIA could integrate over 2000 specially challenged children in the mainstream education in rural areas of Bangalore & Kolar Dist. Majority of them have passed their middle school(VIIth std public exams), some of them have passed 10th std. public exams and few of them are in higher education. Besides passing in the board exams some of these children have been rank holders in their schools.
Major Hurdles:
Integrating these children in regular school was not so smooth in the beginning(1985) as teachers were not accepting the concept of Integration itself and they used to feel that it is impossible. But the places wherever SHG/multi-purpose centre were run in the classrooms provided by the regular schools, children were accepted easily as there was an awareness about these children among regular teachers and other children & also there was location and social integration taken place.
Even after accepting these children in regular schools teachers were not ready to accept that these children's education is of their responsibility. They used to say resource teachers are responsible for educating these children and they even sent out these children when they saw resource teachers by saying "go ! go ! your teacher has come". This was mainly because of the negative attitude of regular teachers.
Changing Attitudes
The attitude of parents and teachers is crucial to the successful integration of specially challenged children into ordinary schools. Here are two examples of how important the attitude of parents & teachers are to specially challenged children attending the school. One example deals with a girl with Hearing impairment and another one with totally blind girl who come from two different villages within 6 km radius of rural areas of Bangalore Dist.(1989).
In one case(girl with hearing impairment), the problem lies in the teacher's attitude and in the other(totally blind girl), the parent's.
I. Shashikala, from Tavarekere, with hearing impairment was 5 years old when she was identified by the CBR worker(CBRW) of SIA. Her parents were happy in sending her to SHG run by SIA in this village. After 2 years preparation, CBRW with the parent's consent decided to admit her in regular school as she was a very brilliant child. The Head Master & teachers at the regular school refused to admit her in their school. The child, parents & CBRW were very upset by this and sought the help of SIA's field co-ordinator(Ms. Manjula Nanjundaiah). She discussed the case with Head Master & teachers of that school and got the permission from the higher authority(Asst. Education Officer) as requested by the Head Master. Finally Shashikala was allowed to attend the school. She has become popular in the school and her performance is being appreciated by her teachers.
II. Latha, from Machohalli, a totally blind girl was 6 years old when she was identified by the CBRW of SIA. But her parents were not ready to neither send her to the SHG Centre run by SIA nor allowed CBRW to visit their daughter at home for almost a year. After noticing the progress of other children with disabilities from that village, mother of the girl decided to send her daughter to Self-help Group. After 2 years preparation, Latha was admitted in the regular school. The Head Master & teachers of that school were very co-operative in providing education to Latha along with other children.
Attempts to Change Attitudes of community through various Awareness programmes
When we have knowledge or information about his/her disability, it makes it easier for us to accept and also minimise their obstacle. In the education system, many people involved with specially challenged children need to enhance their knowledge in order to meet the needs of these children.
In the beginning, SIA had taken the professional's help in organising street plays, puppet shows in villages. Then CBRWs of SIA were equipped in writing themes, making puppets and enact street plays & perform puppet shows on different disability issues in villages.
From past 5 years, SIA organises Child-to-Child activities to empower children to build a positive attitude towards disability from early years of life and they play a major role in changing attitudes of the larger community. The children enact street plays and organise sharing programmes at schools about equal opportunities for children with disabilities.
The celebration of World Disabled Day on 3rd December every year in rural areas are through organising various programmes such as rally with posters & slogans by school children, teachers, local CBRC members and adult disabled group in the main streets, organising Block level Sports for specially challenged children, organising Essay & Debate competitions on disability issues for school children and giving away prizes for winners in the public functions, etc.
The knowledge & information about disability is being given to persons involved in IE programme. SIA believes in enhancement of knowledge is one of the key factor for changing attitudes of the personnel involved in IE programme.
Developing Human Resource for CBR & IE
SIA's major strength lies in building up Human Resources in the field of CBR & IE. SIA conducts a series of training programmes for the various levels of persons from Govt. and Voluntary Organisations through centralised and decentralised training programmes.
Training programmes offered by SIA:
SIA is also involved with other Institutions' training programmes as Resource Persons, as consultants in CBR & IE.
Trainees are being deputed to SIA from various states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and SAARC countries like Srilanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and developing countries from Africa.
Decentralised training programmes conducted directly for NGOs at their Centres to implement CBR located in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, New Delhi and Andhra Pradesh.
SIA Co-ordinated with Government
Developed materials
Influencing Public Policy - Towards Inclusion of specially challenged children in regular schools
Based on the Micro level experience & issues, SIA has played a major role in influencing the public policy at State & National level in favour of inclusion and equal opportunities.
RESEARCH
Field tested the above developed materials through organising 2 months' training in IE for in-service teachers of 1 Block(Magadi) at both Block & District(Bangalore) levels by Seva-in-Action(20th Sept'1999 - 25th Nov'1999).
SIA is also involved in the Implementation of IE started at Magadi Block by IE Committee.
The following major hurdles faced by SIA:
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Negative attitude of community towards pwds, especially regular teachers' attitude. |
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Lack of any initiative from the Govt/community. |
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There were no policies/legislation to protect the rights of pwds. |
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Parents used to hide their children at home as disability has social stigma. |
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Petty politics in the rural areas etc. etc. |
Seva-in-Action has overcome these hurdles over a period of time by
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winning the hearts of pwds, parents, CBR workers, regular school teachers & community through participatory approach in CBR programme & showing positive outcomes. |
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meeting the needs at community level through multi-sectoral approach. |
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training various levels of personnel from Govt. & NGOs. |
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Resource teachers equipped with specialised teaching techniques prepare children with impairments for integration and also assist regular teachers in curriculum adaptation to meet the needs of all children in the classroom. But major emphasis was given on the role of regular teachers with the support of peer groups, parents & community. |
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working closely with Govt. - providing technical support to Education Department - Department of State Educational Research & Training(DSERT), District Institute of Education &Training(DIET), and Cluster & Block levels personnel under District Primary Education Programme(DPEP). |
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preparing multi-category Resource teachers through one year multi-category teachers training course in Inclusive Education and CBR personnel through short term & long term CBR training programmes |
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included IE component in existing teacher training programmes [Anganvadi (ECCE) & Primary education]. |
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the legislation for protecting rights of pwds came into force in 1996. |
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acted as a catalytic agent in bringing about the positive change in society by developing replicable models. |
Note a change: After much struggle from many quarters, now schools in Karnataka are admitting all children including the excluded. As a result of this, more number of children with impairments are integrated in regular schools as against few or no children with impairment in regular schools 10 years ago. So far around 2500 teachers were trained as Resource teachers in IE by DIETS & NGOs in Karnataka.
Seva-in-Action has been pressurising the Govt. to orient all regular teachers in IE as a part of restructuring the education system in order to respond to the diversity in the classroom.
In spite of all these efforts, the following barriers are still there against development:
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rigidity in the approach |
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lack of initiative |
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no application |
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no follow-up |
Even though 80% of the educational needs can be met at the community level, specialised provision is required for few children with severe impairments (adaptations in physical environment, special equipment, teaching & learning materials, medical rehabilitation & specific special skills to cope up with regular schools etc.).
LESSONS LEARNT
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Demystification of technology and community participation is the key factor for sustainability of any CBR programme. |
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Inclusive Education is an integral component of CBR as 70% of the needs of children are educational rather than medical. |
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It is important to make the right preparations in advance before integrating them into regular schools. |
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Early intervention programmes can be sustained only when families are involved. |
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The personnel involved at all levels in Education system need to be oriented in IE. |
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Regular monitoring is essential |
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All regular teachers need to be trained in IE through Decentralisation of IE training programmes in the Cluster & Block levels - It is important to prepare at least 2 teachers from each cluster (2 teachers for 15 - 20 schools) as Resource teachers cum trainers who are finally responsible to orient all regular teachers in IE & provide Resource support to specially challenged children through these regular teachers. |
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Inclusive Education component should be incorporated in regular teachers training syllabus through permeated method, so that all teachers will be equipped to meet the needs of all children in the classroom. |
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Voluntary organisations cannot limit their role to be just service providers but act as a catalytic agent in bringing about the positive change in society by developing replicable models. |
Conclusion:
I am convinced that Inclusion begins at a school where all children can attend together, must build on the idea that differences are accepted and that every one has something to contribute. Going to school helps them to make friends and to mix with the rest of the community. If they are treated with respect, they will gain more self-esteem. For the parents, it is a great relief that their children have a place in school along with other children.
With 15 years' experience, Seva-in-Action feels that the Inclusion is the only way to prepare pwds for normal growth & to enable them to face life with courage & confidence. Hence children with impairments should be integrated in all aspects with general community as equal partners from the beginning.
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