Someone once said, a good mother is worth hundreds of school teachers. Rearing a child is an endeavour which needs immense patience and love. And who else is better at it than a mother? But even most mothers, when they find out that their child is not among the 'normal' ones, lose heart and get depressed. They tend to think that God has punished them with a mentally or physically challenged child and that it is now their fate to suffer. Most parents do not stop to think that though their child is not 'normal,' he or she may be 'special', with abilities different than the normal ones. It is rather refreshing to find a mother who thinks that her child is indeed 'special' and discovers love through that 'special' child.
Anuradha Nandakumar, wife of city-based builder M.S. Nandakumar, has two children — son Nishanth and daughter Nimisha. Being the mother of a mentally challenged son, she decided to work for the empowerment of such children, teach them innovatively, train them in vocational courses and get them economically independent to an extent by helping them get jobs.
In order to support the parents of such special children, Anuradha founded the Mysore District Parents' Association for Empowering Developmentally Disabled (MDPAEDD) in the city, which works from the Namana Kala Mantapa building on 2nd Cross, Krishnamurthypuram. With a view to create interest about arts in the mentally challenged, this down-to-earth achiever also provides Namana Kala Mantapa, which she owns, without any rent to the organisations helping mentally challenged to conduct various programmes including drama, singing and yoga.
Anuradha's achievements do not stop here. She has also served as the Past President of Spoorthi, the Ladies Wing of Builders' Association of India (BAI), Mysore Centre.
When I caught up with Anuradha, she spoke about her experience of raising a special child and her aspirations towards rehabilitating the children and supporting their parents. Excerpts:
Shwetha: What was your experience as the mother of a mentally challenged child?
Anuradha Nandakumar: When I came to know that my son was mentally challenged, I was initially depressed, but only for some time. Then I thought spending my life in depression was of no use and I had to look after my child and bring out his talents in a positive way. I took him to Chetana Trust for Mentally Disabled. There we taught the children letters, words and colour concepts. They were taught their letters and words musically, sounds of animals and other basic syllabus, mainly through phonetics. A new syllabus was created and circulated among all mothers. It was such fun, innovating new things for the kids to do, creating new ideas... all parents were together and it mattered a lot. What was the next step to be taken towards teaching them was always on our minds. We always had something different to do because they were not run-of-the-mill children. They don't do most activities that normal kids do. So we had to keep inventing new concepts and that's what kept us going.
Shwetha: Where did your son study?
Anuradha: Chetana Trust guided us in all our steps. He studied pre-nursery, LKG and UKG in play home and then at Mahabodhi School. However, after 4th standard, we stopped taking him to school because we felt academic pursuit in normal lines was not suited for him. So he started going only to Chetana. Mathematical concepts were introduced there along with time concept. Even today he is so perfectly punctual that none of us has that kind of discipline. Our relatives and friends call him the 'Time keeper to the nation' like the famous HMT slogan. Today, all children of the parents who were the first members of MDPAEDD are grown up. They are aged 26, 30, 32 years etc., but they are very much together.
Shwetha: Is there any incident that saddened you most?
Anuradha: I will tell you one incident that happened when my son was young. I used to take him to school in bus everyday. One day, playful that he was, he refused to get down the bus at our stop as he fell in love with bus travel. I was coaxing him to get down when the bus conductor started shouting, "Why do you have to bring 'such' children in bus to trouble us?" Everybody in the bus started staring at us. That day, the conductor's behaviour saddened me. Then my husband decided that he would buy me a scooter to take our son to school.
Shwetha: How does your daughter Nimisha cope up with her 'special' brother?
Anuradha: She is so co-operative and mature for her age. All the siblings of such kids are mature. They learn the societal pulses and they feel it quickly. She was so matured that even in childhood, the childishness was absent. Even when we elders lose patience, she corrects us and comes to her brother's rescue saying "Mama, don't scold him like that." The siblings of such kids have that special kind of affection. My daughter is so motherly with her sibling that she started taking care of her parents too along with her sibling. We feel so proud of them. It's all because of that 'special' effect...
Shwetha: Most organisations that work for the cause of mentally challenged, just teach them but don't think about rehabilitating them by providing jobs. You have successfully taken up the rehabilitation work and are providing jobs to special children. What is your inspiration?
Anuradha: Yes, in most organisations there are prevocational and vocational courses for special kids. Then one fine day in 1999, the National Trust Act came into existence which declared no child will stay in any pre-vocational or vocational centre for more than six years. After that they have to be taken out of that place— either placed or engaged in an income-generating activity. When there was a demand to repeal the Act, we appealed to the government not to do so. I thought there would be no future for special children if they were just taught a vocational course.
Anuradha Nandakumar: A profile
Anuradha Nandakumar, 48, is a Rehabilitator under Rehabilitation Council of India, Social Activist in psychiatric social work. She has volunteered as a teacher in Chethana Trust for Mentally Ill & Handicapped and as Counsellor in Police Helpline. Apart from this, she is the former President of Inner Wheel Club of Mysore Midtown. She is the Director of Namana Creations, Founder of Saadhya, an empowerment project for dignity of special-needs citizens and Vice-President of Parivaar Karnataka, State Federation of Parents’ Associations.
Not just social work, Anuradha is also active in sports, screen-printing, theatre and many more such activities.
She has bagged the International Woman of the Year award-2008 given by the International Women’s Guild, Anu Spandana award-2011 by Inner Wheel Club of Mysore Midtown, KSOU award for working in the area of special education.
Anuradha has produced audio cassettes on — Rhymes on colours, animals, sounds, tables etc. for 5-year-olds; 'Shringara Bhaava' in DVG’s book 'Antahpura Geetegalu' etc. apart from films and documentaries "Munnota," "Nenapina Nauke" — a documentary on H.L.N.Simha, "Nail Polish" — a short film for children; "Chaavadi" — a talk show on Law of Land v/s Law of Nature etc., and has also acted in numerous plays.
Anuradha Nandakumar, wife of city-based builder M.S. Nandakumar, has two children — son Nishanth and daughter Nimisha. Being the mother of a mentally challenged son, she decided to work for the empowerment of such children, teach them innovatively, train them in vocational courses and get them economically independent to an extent by helping them get jobs.
In order to support the parents of such special children, Anuradha founded the Mysore District Parents' Association for Empowering Developmentally Disabled (MDPAEDD) in the city, which works from the Namana Kala Mantapa building on 2nd Cross, Krishnamurthypuram. With a view to create interest about arts in the mentally challenged, this down-to-earth achiever also provides Namana Kala Mantapa, which she owns, without any rent to the organisations helping mentally challenged to conduct various programmes including drama, singing and yoga.
Anuradha's achievements do not stop here. She has also served as the Past President of Spoorthi, the Ladies Wing of Builders' Association of India (BAI), Mysore Centre.
When I caught up with Anuradha, she spoke about her experience of raising a special child and her aspirations towards rehabilitating the children and supporting their parents. Excerpts:
Shwetha: What was your experience as the mother of a mentally challenged child?
Anuradha Nandakumar: When I came to know that my son was mentally challenged, I was initially depressed, but only for some time. Then I thought spending my life in depression was of no use and I had to look after my child and bring out his talents in a positive way. I took him to Chetana Trust for Mentally Disabled. There we taught the children letters, words and colour concepts. They were taught their letters and words musically, sounds of animals and other basic syllabus, mainly through phonetics. A new syllabus was created and circulated among all mothers. It was such fun, innovating new things for the kids to do, creating new ideas... all parents were together and it mattered a lot. What was the next step to be taken towards teaching them was always on our minds. We always had something different to do because they were not run-of-the-mill children. They don't do most activities that normal kids do. So we had to keep inventing new concepts and that's what kept us going.
Shwetha: Where did your son study?
Anuradha: Chetana Trust guided us in all our steps. He studied pre-nursery, LKG and UKG in play home and then at Mahabodhi School. However, after 4th standard, we stopped taking him to school because we felt academic pursuit in normal lines was not suited for him. So he started going only to Chetana. Mathematical concepts were introduced there along with time concept. Even today he is so perfectly punctual that none of us has that kind of discipline. Our relatives and friends call him the 'Time keeper to the nation' like the famous HMT slogan. Today, all children of the parents who were the first members of MDPAEDD are grown up. They are aged 26, 30, 32 years etc., but they are very much together.
Shwetha: Is there any incident that saddened you most?
Anuradha: I will tell you one incident that happened when my son was young. I used to take him to school in bus everyday. One day, playful that he was, he refused to get down the bus at our stop as he fell in love with bus travel. I was coaxing him to get down when the bus conductor started shouting, "Why do you have to bring 'such' children in bus to trouble us?" Everybody in the bus started staring at us. That day, the conductor's behaviour saddened me. Then my husband decided that he would buy me a scooter to take our son to school.
Shwetha: How does your daughter Nimisha cope up with her 'special' brother?
Anuradha: She is so co-operative and mature for her age. All the siblings of such kids are mature. They learn the societal pulses and they feel it quickly. She was so matured that even in childhood, the childishness was absent. Even when we elders lose patience, she corrects us and comes to her brother's rescue saying "Mama, don't scold him like that." The siblings of such kids have that special kind of affection. My daughter is so motherly with her sibling that she started taking care of her parents too along with her sibling. We feel so proud of them. It's all because of that 'special' effect...
Shwetha: Most organisations that work for the cause of mentally challenged, just teach them but don't think about rehabilitating them by providing jobs. You have successfully taken up the rehabilitation work and are providing jobs to special children. What is your inspiration?
Anuradha: Yes, in most organisations there are prevocational and vocational courses for special kids. Then one fine day in 1999, the National Trust Act came into existence which declared no child will stay in any pre-vocational or vocational centre for more than six years. After that they have to be taken out of that place— either placed or engaged in an income-generating activity. When there was a demand to repeal the Act, we appealed to the government not to do so. I thought there would be no future for special children if they were just taught a vocational course.
Anuradha Nandakumar: A profile
Anuradha Nandakumar, 48, is a Rehabilitator under Rehabilitation Council of India, Social Activist in psychiatric social work. She has volunteered as a teacher in Chethana Trust for Mentally Ill & Handicapped and as Counsellor in Police Helpline. Apart from this, she is the former President of Inner Wheel Club of Mysore Midtown. She is the Director of Namana Creations, Founder of Saadhya, an empowerment project for dignity of special-needs citizens and Vice-President of Parivaar Karnataka, State Federation of Parents’ Associations.
Not just social work, Anuradha is also active in sports, screen-printing, theatre and many more such activities.
She has bagged the International Woman of the Year award-2008 given by the International Women’s Guild, Anu Spandana award-2011 by Inner Wheel Club of Mysore Midtown, KSOU award for working in the area of special education.
Anuradha has produced audio cassettes on — Rhymes on colours, animals, sounds, tables etc. for 5-year-olds; 'Shringara Bhaava' in DVG’s book 'Antahpura Geetegalu' etc. apart from films and documentaries "Munnota," "Nenapina Nauke" — a documentary on H.L.N.Simha, "Nail Polish" — a short film for children; "Chaavadi" — a talk show on Law of Land v/s Law of Nature etc., and has also acted in numerous plays.
0 comments:
Post a Comment