We aren’t the only ones who travel! Many people come to meet us, too. We love having visitors because they notice things we have overlooked and they bring their own fresh perspectives and experience to our work. We learn so much from them and it’s always fun to stop what we are doing and chat over a cup of coffee. The children particularly enjoy guests, especially the ones who take digital photographs – they are all natural hams!
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Teachers from anganwadi : We played host to 40 anganwadi teachers who along with Ms Prema Nautiyal, Resource person for Integrated Education for Disabled (IED), SSA and Mr. S.P. Semwal, the vice-principal of DISH institute of Education and Training (Dehradun) had come to visit our various centres on 24th July, 2008 to gain a better understanding about children with special needs. Manju Singhania, director, Training and Development gave a presentation about our various projects and our teaching methodology. They were later divided into smaller groups and Nileshwari and Sreedevi took them around to the various centres to have a first hand observation of the different activities and creative teaching methods employed by our teachers. They appreciated the work we are doing and want us to organize workshops for their teachers in future.

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Bobbie Lanont ,Bobbi Bajpal,& sister Karma Sangmo from the Doon School visited Karuna Vihar school  on 3rd April, 2008.  Bobbie Lanont is a teacher visiting the Doon School from Canada. Bobbi Bajpai is Doon School Headmaster Kanti Bajpai's wife and Sister Karma Sangmo is the nurse at the Doon School.

They had come to visit the school because they were interested and wanted to see what we are doing. They liked, admired & were impressed by the dedication and hardwork of the teachers. They appreciated the way we function, our philosophy and also enjoyed interacting with our kids. We thank them for having taken the time and visited our kids and staff!

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Jasmine Pavri from the JRD Tata Trust visited us on the 13th of February. This was her first visit to the Foundation and each one of us was eager to meet her. She went around all our projects (except the EIC) starting with Karuna Vihar School – Junior and Senior; the CVT; the Training Centre and finally the Resource Centre where I got to meet her. The moment she stepped in there was a buzz in the air; though nobody had actually said so, I think we all felt that we needed to put our best foot forward – we were being inspected after all!

My spot in office is quite unusual as far as location of a website coordinator goes – there’s a spiral staircase coming up and as soon as one rounds the last bend they suddenly come face to face with me sitting there on the landing. Over the past few months I have seen a lot of surprised faces. So when Jasmine rounded the last curve – I was expecting her but the look of surprise was mine! For some reason I had this mental picture of a stern lady with hard glittering eyes and a haughty ‘I mean business’ attitude; instead here was a lady who reminded me of my mom. With gentle eyes she looked around so kindly and was so relaxed that I nearly forgot to ask her if she would like to browse through the website with me! Jo subtly nudged and soon the two of us were comfortably seated in front of my computer. Jasmine was really interested and I have to admit I enjoyed showing off.

Later we went into the meeting room where Jasmine met with the Advocacy and Awareness Team and others to get a picture of all the work we have done, the problems we faced and financial matters. Shipra and Anjali spoke of our awareness and advocacy efforts in a simple but comprehensive way and it was Jasmine who pointed out that we probably don’t even realize the extent of our achievements – thank you Jasmine.
Thank you Jasmine for visiting us, for complimenting us, for appreciating our work and most of all for the good-will – I can’t tell you how much this has motivated us to do more than we have promised.

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Toy Makers! (Some guys never grow up)
Sudarshan Khanna and Siegfried Zoels came at last! Sudarshan, India’s best known toy maker and a great friend of Karuna Vihar, has been threatening to come and visit for years. He finally made it, along with his friend and colleague Siegfried, on February 5th.

Sudarshan is the Director of the Toy Centre – a research and production department of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. He is also the author of “The Joy of Indian Toys”, a delightful little handbook on how to make your own toys – a book the Latika Vihar children have worn to shreds over the years.

He and Siegfried Zoels, who runs his own centre in Germany (Toys for Children’s Rehabilitation), co-sponsored a Creativity Workshop in India in 2002 – an international event in which participants from around the world live together for two weeks and design toys for children with special needs.
Siegfried is the brains behind the workshops, which he runs every year somewhere in the world. After each one, a book is printed with photographs of the toys which were designed and simple instructions in how to make them at home. We were honored to receive a copy of the latest one, along with a new copy of our old favorite – The Joy of Indian Toys - from Sudarshan.

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Mr. G.K. and Chini Swamy along with Major General Chander Nandwani (Retd.) visited Karuna Vihar on August 1, 2007.  The Swamys are the founders and directors of Purkal Youth Development Society (PYDS), at Purkal Village, just outside of Dehradun on the road to Mussoorie. Major General Nandwani (Retd. ) is a management consultant who has joined their team in an advisory capacity.

Swamy has initiated educational opportunities for about 200 economically handicapped children coming from extremely poor homes in the village. Each morning, these children are transported to good city schools in PYDS buses, where many are doing extremely well in academics. When they return from school they are given a wholesome mid-day meal and then attend structured classes conducted in a creative manner by qualified teachers till they return to their homes in the village at 7 p.m. Emphasis is placed on English conversation and learning by doing. The centre has a well-stocked library, a fully-equipped chemistry lab and dozens of computers as well as internet facilities.

Just up the road, Chini Swamy runs an active employment centre for the area women whom she has trained in the art of patchwork quilt making. 38 are now employed and 64 are waiting for their turn – all they need is more space. The quilts are available directly from the centre and can also be ordered in the colors and design of one’s choice.

For more information about the Swamys and their many projects, visit their website at: www.purkal.org
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Madhu Dhiman, Judhya Devi and Sonika, Community Development workers from CORD (Chinmaya Organisation for Rural Development ) visited the school on 3 rd August. CORD coordinates activities of the National Centre for Employment of Differently Abled Persons. They have 12 district partners with whom they have joined hands to promote the cause of disability by initiating inclusion in all spheres of society. Community workers reach out to families by visiting as many as 8 homes per day. We look forward to further interaction with CORD. 

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Ms Shiraz Vira, a Social Science Researcher working with The Refugee Studies Program in Cambridge, UK, visited the school on the August 22, 2007. She is also the Director of a recently formed NGC – Camvol – which sends undergraduates from Cambridge University to developing countries as volunteers. As many of her students are interested in disability and education, she wanted to check out KV as a potential spot for placements.

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Dr Surinder Randhawa, a consultant in deaf education from Roorkee and a passionate advocate for signing as the best form of communication for people with hearing handicap, visited the school on the 24th of August. Her daughter Tanveer, an English Honours student at Ramjas College (D.U.) did a write-up on us which was published in the Garhwal Post  in July (Provide a link!).

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Ann Varavukala visited us from St Mary’s School in Delhi. She has a 14 year old son who has autism and this has changed her world in profound and far-reaching ways. She has given up her job as a software engineer to devote full-time to his education and to helping others become better teachers too. After working as a volunteer for several years at Action for Autism’s Open door school which her son attended, she went to the US to train as a behaviour analyst – a science concerned with the behavior of people, what they do and say, with particular reference to the environment in which they live and function. It attempts to understand, explain, describe and predict behavior. We don’t understand it too well, but we are looking forward to getting to know her better in the future to learn more about it and about how we can apply it to our work with teachers and children.

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Stephane Paumier is an architect – originally from France but living in India for the past twelve years. Stephane is working on the design of our new building and came to visit the Foundation to see the place in action. His first visit had been during the holidays and all we could show him were empty buildings – totally not what he had come to see! Stephane’s buildings use beautiful clean lines and lots of light and space. He is challenged by the diverse requirements children with special needs have in a building and is enjoying the process of learning about them as he plans the new centre we have in mind.