Atul Khatri, stand-up comedian and writer |
The 80-year-old Jai Vakeel Foundation has helped lakhs of children with intellectual disabilities live a dignified and inclusive life.
In the 1940s, Mr and Mrs Hormusjee Vakeel had a daughter, Dina, who was born with Down Syndrome. With nowhere to send her for education or therapy, they started to provide these at home, slowly opening up their doors for other children needing special care. The couple had the foresight to buy a 2-acre land in the heart of Mumbai, starting the journey of the Jai Vakeel Foundation in 1944. For 80 years now, this organisation has been serving children and adults with intellectual disability.
“Currently, we serve around 750 students a day directly from our three campuses — Mumbai, Talegaon and Deolali,” said Archana Chandra, CEO, Jai Vakeel Foundation, who took over the leadership role in 2013. The campus houses a school for autism, the Jai Vakeel School Mumbai, a healthcare centre and a sheltered workshop.
“Within disability, intellectual disability (ID) is the least understood and the most invisible. Around two per cent of India's population has ID, which, if loosely broken down, is 1 in 50 people,” said Chandra. “I think these children are almost invisible and are kept away in their houses,” she said, explaining the stigma attached to the condition.
“ID is a condition when the brain is unable to comprehend, assimilate and communicate as clearly as most of us can. If I were to use Intelligence quotient (IQ) as a number to just explain this condition, 100 is the normal IQ. All the children and adults we serve, have an IQ of 70 and below,” she said. It is a spectrum-based condition where it can go down all the way till 20. Many children with ID also have visual or hearing impairment, cerebral palsy, autism, etc.
From 2013 onwards, the organisation's lens evolved from care to inclusion, and their interventions now focus on empowering every child and family towards better inclusion with the mainstream.
The youngest child on the campus is three years old and the oldest is 50. “So we have the entire age spectrum and the disability spectrum; and almost 75 per cent of the children are from the lower economic strata.”
When it comes to healthcare, holistic, need-based medical and therapeutic intervention is provided to children and adults with ID, alongside counselling with their families. Depending on where the children (between ages three to 18) are on the spectrum, the meaning of education changes accordingly. Some children are recommended for functional academics, still others for skills to help them be independent in the daily activities.
There is no standard education board for children with ID, so the organisation took it upon itself to build a curriculum that is applicable and relevant. “This curriculum was tested and run on our campuses with our children and in 2019 we partnered with the Maharashtra government to take this curriculum to all special needs schools in the State.” This is the Disha Abhiyan, now operational in 475 schools, with 2,200 teachers and 22,000 children impacted.
The larger goal in life for most people is to go out in the world and make a place for themselves by making a living based on the talent and skills one possesses. The foundation’s sheltered workshop at the campus for the students of the ages from 18 to 50 does just that. For students between 18 to 21, they provide vocational training programmes, where the students are trained to seek employment. “If people above 21 are not able to seek employment, then based on their aptitude, they are taught to make agarbatti, candles, shopping bags, making torans, weaving etc., for which they are paid a stipend,” says Chandra.
One of the oldest and largest institutes in the city, they have been serving children and adults with ID for eight decades. In its 80th year, the Jai Vakeel Foundation has served and impacted lakhs of children and their families and they continue to do it. With their consistent work and relentless efforts, so far, lakhs of people have been integrated and enabled to lead a more inclusive life.
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