Project on:

Comprehensive Rehabilitation of Children/ Persons with Disabilities through Inclusive Approach

Submitted by SPARC India

26, Guru Daya Niwas

Sachiwalaya Colony , Mousambagh

Sitapur Road Lucknow

Ph:-XXX

Website:

Email:- ,

Organization Information

B.1.1 / Name of the organization / School for Potential Advancement and Restoration of Confidence SPARC- India
B.1.2 / Acronym of the organization (if any) / SPARC-India
B.1.3 / Postal address of the Administrative Office of the Organization with Pin Code and contact details(including Phone and Fax no. with STD code, Email Id and website, if any) / Gurudaya Niwas, 26, Sachivalaya Colony, Mausambagh, Sitapur Road.
Lucknow-226020(Uttar Pradesh, India)
B.1.4 / Name and contact details of the Chief Functionary of the Organization (with phone number/ cell phone no. and Email id) / Name : Amitabh Mehrotra
Gurudaya Niwas, 26, Sachivalaya Colony, Mausambagh, Sitapur RoadLucknow-226020
Uttar Pradesh India
Cell No : +91 9839171676
E-mail Id :

:
Website :
B.1.7 / FCRA No. with Year of FCRA Registration / FCRA No : 136550120 26th May’ 1999
B.1.8 / Income Tax Reg. No. under Section 12AA / Income Tax No: U/S 12’A’ 58-59 (56)
B.1.9 / PAN (Permanent Account No.) of the Organization / AAAAS6120J
B.1.10 / TAN Number, if available / LKNS05730E

Table of Contents:

Part I: About the Organization

Part II: Intervention Details

PART I: ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

A.1 About SPARC India

'SPARC' (School for Potential Advancement and Restoration of Confidence) - India is a non-profit organization with its Head Office at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India and has been in its existence for more than 16 years now. SPARC-INDIA was formed in 1995 and registered in July 1996, as a voluntary organization with the Registrar Society, Firms and Chit funds, Societies Registration Act. It aimed to empower the people with various disabilities and especially people with cerebral palsy.

Right from its inception SPARC-INDIA realized that in order to ensure welfare of people with disabilities, it was necessary to rehabilitate them. Hence in 1996 SPARC-INDIA started its Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programme for the persons with disabilities in the urban slums of Lucknow city of Uttar Pradesh. The thrust of the programme was on health and medical rehabilitation, formation of Self-Help Groups (SHGs) of persons with disability and their families and to establish linkages with government schemes. Realizing the pertinence of this urban rehabilitation program SPARC decided to run a program along similar lines in the rural areas. Thus a rural rehabilitation program was coined for Barabanki district, which started with Deva block and was subsequently spread to Nindura block.

Gradually, SPARC also started aligning itself to the philosophy of ‘inclusion’. It emphasised that inclusive environments will help in ending or at least minimising segregation and deep rooted misunderstandings and prejudices between the disabled and non-disabled sections of the society. This, SPARC felt should allow the disabled people to attain their rightful place in society and becomecontributing members of the society by attempting to remove areas of conflict and promoting harmonious ties between both the sections of the society.In the year 2012 SPARC India was selected as a Lead CSO in the field of Disability by PACS,a DFID project, in which SPARC India is working in 110 wards in Lucknow on an inclusive approach and collaborates with 19 CSOs for the mainstreaming of disability in the society.

A.2 Experience of SPARC India in the area of disability

Working since close to two decades SPARC has now developed insight through various types of experience on the issue of disability.

  • SPARC India has established U.P Viklang Manch as a breakthrough in promotion of the rights of disabled persons. This Manch or federation of sorts has developed a support system for CWDs/PWDs, to exercise their statutory rights of health, livelihood, education, social security schemes and rights and entitlements etc. The organization under its urban programme has formed Sahyog Vikas Manch- a federation of CWDs/PWDs at block level. The federation, owing to some of its remarkable achievements has caught the attention of the government, and has received a piece of land of around 1 acre for setting up a dairy unit in Dewa block of district Lucknow.
  • During the last five years SPARC-India has benefited approximately 8000 CWDs/ PWDs directly and approximately 35000 family members of CWDsand PWDs through its various programs or initiatives.
  • SPARC India has revolutionized the financial independence and well being of scores of women, particularly challenged women by enabling them to initiate the entrepreneurial activities which results in handsome returns. It has facilitated formation of self help groups that are involved in social action and other advocacy related activities as well. Today they are demanding their entitlements.
  • SPARC India has motivated people with disabilities to hope beyond basic necessities of life and seek their potential. For example, in Nindura project area 2 persons with disabilities got success in recent panchayat election held in 2010 by the advocacy efforts of other people with disabilities and the community.
  • SPARC-India has been recognized at various platforms. For example recently, Mr. Amitabh Mehrotra, Director of SPARC- India has been nominated as a master trainer on census 2011 for disability issues in Uttar Pradesh. He is also a member of Disability Rights Group in India.

A.3 Organizational Capacity

-The organization has n esteemed board of qualified professionals. Also the Founder Chairperson and Director, who is an active member is a qualified social worker and a pass out from TISS (Tata institute of Social Sciences) institution Mumbai and has 25 years of experience in the field.

-SPARC-India has a team of more than 20 full time professionals. These include physiotherapists, speech therapists and occupation therapists, among other professionals.The vocational training and placement centre has computer instructors and stitching instructors who impart training to PWDs.

-It also has X additional field workers and resource persons working on a floating basis.

-The organization has X offices and is centred at its office in Lucknow.

-SPARC office is equipped with furniture, phones, computers, and internet and fax systems.

PART II: INTERVENTION DETAILS

  1. Background:

According to census 2001 reports 2.19 crore peoplein India (which is 2.13 percent of the total population of the country) are persons living with disability. In fact 1.67 percent of the total population of the country within the age-group of 0-18 years are disabled. This is a whopping figure of 463826702. Of all persons living with disability 35.9 percent are children and young adults in the 0-19 age-group.

The state scenario of Uttar Pradesh is equally unnerving. Uttar Pradesh is one of the largest states in the country having 75 districts in all, divided in four regions.According to the provisional data from 2011 census the population of UP is 20 crores (200 millions) and according to the Principal Secretary Human Welfare Department the disability population is 50 lakhs (which is 2.5 percent of the total population).In 2011-12 the total number of PWDs who had job opportunities in the NREGS was 17335.

In 2012-2013 Sarva Shikhsha Abhiyan (SSA) identified 367999 CWDs, out of which 306319 CWDs have been integrated in government primary schools and 6,859 children were linked to Elementary Guarantee Scheme (EGS)/ Alternative Innovative Education (AIE) centres. However, no CWDs were benefitted through home based education. (Source: SSA website)

The state had passed the RTE Act in 2011. The RTE Act has a provision of School Management Committees in primary schools for assuring quality education through community vigilance. However, the composition of school management committees does not include parents of children with disability.

  1. Situation Analysis

It has been noted that in the proposed areas, namely urban slums of Lucknow and rural regions of Barabanki, the children and people with special needs are among the most marginalized as they continuously manage their daily life chores in their difficult conditions without adequate social and family support. The children, especially with disability suffer from many limitations foremost among them is the negligence from parental care. Children with disabilities grow and attain youth without any preparedness for work and employment in future. There is absence of adequate programme for them to equip them to compete with others for modern training and employment opportunities.

Also the access level regarding the rights and schemes for PWDs in the proposed area is very low, owing to various factors, like lack of literacy, social stigma, lack of representation in decision-making process etc. The physical limitations of PWDs do not permit them to perform their daily activities; moreover they are restricted by the society. Due to these limitations Children/Persons with disability have very limited sources of livelihood and education.

According to research studies the percentage of disability in the research area of Lucknow and Kanpur accounts to 4.4%, which includes cataract and chronic illness. This ratio is high compared to the national percentage of 1.99%.The research area also suffers from some key problems like literacy, health and hygiene, sanitation and transport.

There are a few specific areas in context to children and persons with disabilities which stands particularly neglected. These are:

-Education

-Livelihood, and

-Access to rights and entitlement

Experientially through its interventions SPARC noted the following type of challenges for the people and children with disability face the following challenges in the three core areas mentioned above:

Education challenges / Livelihood challenges / Rights and Entitlement challenges
-Lack of accessible infrastructure in schools for children with disability
-Lack of appropriate facilities for the CWDs
-Denial in enrolment of CWDs in school
-Lack of skilled teachers for dealing with CWDs in regular school
-Lack of proper transportation facility for children with disability
-Lack of flexible &child friendly education system / -Lack of opportunity for skill development
-Negative attitude of corporate and government bodies in providing employment opportunities to PWDs
-Restricted availability of credit support to PWDs to strengthen their livelihood ventures
-Products made by PWDs do not get exposure in the market due to lack of marketing strategies
-Limited capacity of PWDs to develop themselves as an entrepreneur, especially with severe disability / -Lack of awareness among persons with disabilities
-Lack of political will to raise issues related to persons/children with disability
-Poor implementation of existing schemes and acts
-Non Visibility of Persons/Children with disability due to lack of united efforts, platform building and advocacy initiatives
-Disability welfare department is not active

Unfortunately, the state has no integrated or holistic approach programme for the children/persons with disabilities.In this context an intervention that integrates the various requirements for people and children with disabilities is a necessity.

There is an underlying issue also that was noticed in a cross cutting manner. There is no sense of inclusion for the PWDs (persons living with disabilities) and CWDs (children with disabilities) in general spheres of life. SPARC noted a few points in this context:

-People and children with disabilities are often excluded from different spheres of life. This not only includes education and livelihood aspects but also accessibility to other spheres of life

-As a consequence of this people and children with disabilities are excluded from ‘equal opportunities’ and are among the marginalized among the marginalized

-It has often been noted that interaction between disabled and non disabled people through common programs can increase a sense of inclusiveness

-Such common programs are logical in that they save resources and increase awareness and sensitivity about the disabled among the non disabled population

  1. Proposed Intervention:

In the context of the above mentioned need SPARC India has coined an intervention that is integrative and holistic. The intervention integrates the following three aspects:

-Education:here one of the prerogatives would be to link these children (CWDs) with non challenged children for developing a psychosocial bonding and friendship. Through the inclusion of most marginalized children in education SPARC will try to erase the discrimination through their friendship and mainstreaming of both.Through its community programs SPARC is planning to introduce some small training capsule courses for primary (government) school teachers for educating children with disabilities and development of TLM according to the need of Children these children so that they may have access to quality education.

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-Livelihood:Under this section main thrust to rehabilitate PWDs through the improvement of financial Health by not only skill development and financial help also to insure the successful implementation of govt policies related with livelihood like MNRGA, NRLM, KVIC, NHFDC and other schemes and also focus of the program to build a inclusive environment in communities to strengthen their financial health and establish positive linkage with government schemes.

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-Rights and Entitlements:Here SPARC will focus for successful implementation of government policies and programs in favour of PWDs especially for severe CWDs/ PWDs by empowering them and also enhancing their rights and entitlement through positive advocacy and awareness generation. SPARC India will also build a State level forum to enable the DPOs (District People’s Organization) to raise their voices in different platforms.

Also, in this context to the need for an inclusive approach, as emphasised in ‘Situation Analysis’ SPARC proposes an inclusive approach to its intervention where it will not restrict its interventions to the disabled alone but will have interventions that have spill effects for the non disabled population and with benefits of mainstreaming and interaction for the disabled population.

3.1 Geographical Coverage

The intervention is proposed in the districts of Lucknow and Barabanki.

3.2 Time Span

The time span for the proposed intervention is 5 years spread across 2013-17.

3.3 Goal

The goal of the intervention is:

-Enhanced standard of living of PWDs by ensuring their financial health and access to their rights and entitlements.

-Increased Literacy and learning level of CWDs by ensuring Inclusive and quality education.

Thus the goal would be for a holistic upliftment for people and children with disabilities.

3.4 Objectives

The objectives of the intervention are given below for the three intervention focus areas, namely, education, livelihood and advocacy for rights and entitlements:

Education – To create an enabling environment of inclusive education for children with disabilities and sensitise students, teachers and parents towards a more inclusive mindset as elaborated through the following subobjectives:

-To increase participation of disabled children in school by sensitizing parents and school authorities so that parents pursue enrolment of disabled children and school authorities encourage the process

-To create an enabling environment of education for children with disabilities by sensitising teachers so that special teaching aids and teaching processes are used to reach out to children with disabilities

-To foster an inclusive system by sensitizing students, parents and teachers so that there is no discrimination and there is good interaction between disabled and non disabled students and mainstreaming is encouraged

Livelihood – To connect people with disabilities to skill sets and forward and backward linkages that enable them to access livelihood options for a financially independent existence through inclusive usage of resources with the following sub objectives:

-To connect people with disabilities to skill sets so that they may create their own source of living

-To provide support of forward and backward linkages to disabled earners so that they may increase their earnings and strengthen their source of livelihood

-To increase linkages with government livelihood related schemes to foster earning potential

Advocacy for rights and entitlements – To connect people with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities to various rights and entitlements and form a network of strength for disabled people with the following sub objectives:

-To generate awareness among people with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities to their various rights and entitlements

-To connect people with disabilities and parents of children with disabilities to various rights and entitlements

-To form a network for people with disabilities so that they have a platform for support, strength and advocacy

Thus the intervention though focused on people and children with disabilities would aim in a cross cutting manner across marginalized cross sections of society.

3.5 Strategies

In order to achieve the objectives the following strategic points would be considered:

-Intensive training, capacity building and sensitization of staff so that they may up to date to current contexts such as RTE, entitlements etc. and can carry forward the intervention in light of such knowledge and understanding

-Using a multi pronged approach where education, livelihood and networking aspects would all be concurrently strengthened in order to attain objectives

-Chalking an inclusive approach where the marginalised in general and the disabled among the marginalized would be targeted and interaction between disabled and non disabled people would be a key to achieve objectives and outcomes

-Laying stress on networking to achieve objectives and forming variety of networks from groups to federations

3.6 Proposed Activities:

Taking into account the aforementioned problems in the education of the children with disabilities and the barriers they face in their education, below mentioned are the activities that are being proposed to thrash out the problems:

a) Education

  1. Capacity building of staff on RTE and inclusive education: For effective implementation of RTE Act 2009 firstly, it is very necessary to strengthen the knowledge of our current staff on Right to Education and Inclusive Education. This capacity building of the staff will not only give them a better understanding on Right to Education Act but will also help them in widening their perspective towards Inclusion, especially inclusive education.
  2. Sensitization and need based counselling for parents, CWDs, Non CWDs etc: Considering the level of ignorance and negligence that the children with disability face in their daily lives, it is of vital importance that need based counselling services and various sensitization programs are conducted for the children with disabilities, their parents and also for non-challenged children and their parents if needed.
  3. Identification of schools for intervention
  4. Identification and enrolment of children in the schools: To start with the program, first of all it is of vital importance to identify children with disabilities in the work field area and gradually get them enrol in the regular schools.
  5. Sensitization of community towards the program and community mobilization
  6. Formation and Activation of SMCs- Involvement of CWDs parents in SMCs: The provision of School Monitoring Committees in the government schools needs to be brought to action.