Asha for Education

Project Brief: Project Challenge is a project that aims at funding a school for the deaf-mute children residing in and around the remote South Indian village of Dharmapuri.
Project Type: Special Needs (description)
Primary Focus: children with disabilities (description)

Secondary Focus: other

Area: Rural
Supporting Chapter Contact:
Toledo

Status: UNKNOWN
Project Steward: Sarnath Santhanam
Project Partner(s): Jeba Durai
Project Address: Challenge
Rotary Vivekananda School For Deaf
Thulasi Nagar,
Pidamaneri, Tamil Nadu 636701
Tel: +91 4342 280933
Stewarding Chapter: Toledo

The district of Dharmapuri in Southern India is home to some of the poorest of India's masses. The “Rotary Vivekananda School for the Deaf” is a non-profit school based in the village Pidamaneri in Dharmapuri. This school, established with the help of the Rotary Club aims at providing basic education and vocational training to children with hearing or speech disabilities. Most of the children attending this school come from extremely poor families, with their parents having little or no education. The school was started in 1993, by the “Sri Vivekananda Charitable and Endowment Trust”, to provide free education to the physically challenged children hailing from the socially and economically backward families in and around the village of Pidamaneri.
The school provides free boarding, meals and clothing to seventy odd children who study there. Currently, education is provided only till the eighth grade after which the children have the option of joining a government run school for the hearing disabled – which charges a small fee. However, economic difficulties force the majority of the children graduating from this school to return to laboring in the fields and hence development of a vocational training center is on its way.

Among the many areas requested for support, Asha Toledo has prioritized funding for “group hearing aids” since most schools for the deaf-mute need to be equipped with these devices. The group hearing aid is a tool which has individual earphones, microphone and a volume control meter for each student, and one for the teacher. This improves student-teacher interaction; the major advantage of this form of instruction being that the students can relate sound syllables to lip movements. One group hearing aid, normally, benefits eight students.