Sri Shankara Special School launches “Sunshine”
With the Blessings of the Jagadguru Shankaracharya Sri Bharati Tirtha Mahaswamiji, the Noida-based non-governmental organization – Sri Shankara Special School, a unit of the Peetham, has been working towards rehabilitation of individuals with special needs for the last 15 years.
On 18th January 2010, the Special School launched “Sunshine” a new program with the support of Orange Business Services, the enterprise communications arm of the France Telecom Group, in collaboration with the Orange Foundation, the group’s corporate foundation. The ‘Sunshine’ program aims to improve the lives of 70 underprivileged young women, including 30 with special needs by providing them vocational training in the following areas: pottery, candle making, glass painting and tailoring with embroidery. Knowledge and soft skills, such as spoken English, and basic computer and marketing skills will also be taught to the young women, so that they will become self sufficient, and will have a better chance to earn a living for themselves and their families. Under this initiative, Orange’s employees in India will also be volunteering to support the young women in imparting soft skills, as well as helping them to sell the goods by setting up kiosks.
Announcing the launch of this project, Mr. Didier Duriez – Senior Vice President, Orange said, “Commitment towards the society is one of the key parameters of success of a corporate. We are happy to make a difference and extend our support to the work being done by the Shankara Special School in India.”
Welcoming the guest, Mr. V R Gowrishankar, CEO Dakshinaamnaya Sri Sharada Peetham,Sringeri said “With project Sunshine, we want to have a comprehensive facility which will provide vocational training to normal, as well as individuals with special needs. We wish to provide equal opportunities, a chance to prove one self, a chance to walk, with their head held high despite all odds, a chance to survive.” Since the mid-90’s, Shankara Special School school has been actively involved in providing medical, diagnostic and rehabilitative services in Noida irrespective of socioeconomic backgrounds and severity of problem areas. Currently the school caters to 60 students with special needs and multiple problems. A dedicated team of special educators, occupational therapists, speech language pathologists, counselors, music and dance therapists attend to the needs of the students with a teacher to student ratio of 1:12. Earnest efforts are being made to ensure that these children at least become self sufficient and are not dependent on others. The newly launched ‘Sunshine’ program has now widened the service base of the School.