Vikasa Tarangini - Nethra Vidyalaya

Project Brief: Nethra Vidyalaya is a residential school for the visually challenged children in and around Vishakapatnam. Asha provides support to this school by funding teachers' salaries.
Project Type: Special Needs (description)
Primary Focus: children with disabilities (description)

Secondary Focus: other

Area: Rural
Supporting Chapter Contact: Austin
Status: completed - sustainable
Project Steward: Vandana Mallempati
Project Partner(s): Pakalapati Lakshmi
Other Contacts:
Project Address: , 13-239, Bhimli Beach Rd, Mangamaripeta Village,Chapaluppada Post,Visakhapatnam,
ANDHRA PRADESH  530045
Tel: 011 91 99896 95888
Stewarding Chapter: Austin
Nov 2020AustinUSD 5606
Jun 2020AustinUSD 5541
Oct 2019AustinUSD 10709
Nov 2018AustinUSD 5440
Sep 2018AustinUSD 4814

Total = $32110

"The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision." - Helen Keller

To enable the visually challenged children to realize their vision of getting educated and later employed in their field of interest, we need adequate support from generous donors and good NGOs. Our students require adaptations to the environment, materials and instructions in order to have access to the curriculum. Each student has his or her own unique visual needs. Our school currently runs on the funds from our own trust. The funds are utilized for providing food, accomidation, education and primary healthcare to our students. We require resources for teaching nine areas of the expanded core curriculum: Compensatory, Sensory efficiency, Assistive Technology, Independent living, social Skills, Orientation & mobility, Career education, Recreation & leisure and Self-determination. Although, each of our students is unique with his/her own capabilities. In general, they lack in communication skills before joining our school. To assist them to excel in their field of interest and become successful in life, we require adequate resources and funding.
The main objective of the school is to provide free and quality education for the visually impaired students who are mainly from rural and tribal areas in and around Visakhapatnam.
Nethra Vidyalaya was established in 2001 with 18 students in Vizianagaram. Eventually they moved to Visakhapatnam in 2013. This is a co-ed school and currently 115 students are enrolled in the school in grades 1 through 10. Most of the children come from households where the parents are either daily laborers or fishermen with literacy rates below 30%. The instructors in the school focus on the overall development of the students to make them independent and successful in life with all the essential social and employment skills.