Bharat Lokhit Seva Samiti was set up on April 19, 1994 with the aim to serve the society. Various activities are carried out for overall social welfare, which includes education for mentally retarded and physically handicapped, organising camps,workshops, seminars and short term courses for children and women welfare and employment in backward rural areas.
CHINMAY Resident Institute For Mentally Retarded was established in 1998 under the auspices of Bharat Lokhit Seva Samiti. The major aim of the institute is to rehabilitate the mentally challenged children by providing a conducive environment for their overall development. It aims at providing all kind of support to the mentally challenged children for their own development, for making them self-reliant and socially acceptable.
Vision:
To build a society where intellectually challenged children are able to realize their full potential and are able to grow with a sense of dignity and self-worth whereby they are accepted with dignity by their family members and society at large.
Mission:
To offer high quality residential training, care and education to intellectually challenged children through addressing their behavioural and speech problems, imparting self-help skills and catering to their therapeutic needs so that they are able to reduce their dependence on others and live a full-filling life.
Basic Objectives:
i. To undertake a proper assessment and diagnosis of each child.
ii. To identify the psychological and therapeutic needs of the child.
iii. To assess the capacity of each child and thereafter place them in groups and grades. (As per prescribed standards and instructions of NIMH regarding Special School).
iv. To manage behavioral problems and to impart special skills, self-help skills, and cater to the therapeutic needs of mentally challenged children.
v. To manage the educational and vocational needs.
vi. To give special inputs for the improvement of the communication skills of the MR child.
vii. To recruit trained Teachers – with desirable and essential qualifications prescribed and recognized by RCI who are well attuned to the specific needs of mentally challenged children.
viii. To apply the single window concept of providing for the plurality of therapy needs of the beneficiaries with the support of RCI recognized BRS graduates who can provide for the above viz, speech therapy, physiotherapy, occupational therapy as well as psycho-therapy and parental counseling.
The institute has both residential as well as day care programme. For both the programmes efforts are made to ensure individual and timely attention to each of them, to ensure hygiene, formal training, guidance, security, psychological support, love and care for each one of them. At present 35 children are provided training under the residential programme and 15 children under the day care programme. The children registered are from Ahmedabad city, rural pockets of Gujarat and even from outside Gujarat. Specially Toilet untrained (Sevier) children are admitted in the institute for both programmes.
For holistic development and rehabilitation of mentally retarded children, routine daily care training, behavioural problems training, vocational training, speech therapy are conducted. In addition, to bring them into the main stream of society, training for socialisation and individual problems are conducted too. Activities like arts and craft, sports, music and cultural events are done to instil enthusiasm and happiness in these children. For physical development, children are put on exercises and Yoga & Meditation therapy in the additional time. All festivals are celebrated with enthusiasm to familiarise the children with festivals. Children are taken on one-day picnics to get a close feel of Mother Nature.
While making efforts to develop mentally retarded children, Parents perception for their children and training given by parents are equally important. To provide necessary understanding and guidance to parents, meetings with parents are arranged.
For effective results the institute has adopted the approach of obtaining services of professionals of various background like Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychotherapy, Audiology and Speech therapy, occupational therapy, educational and social field. The institute recognised that parents’ cooperation and staffers’ physical and mental dedication towards mentally retarded children was essential. Hence, parents and staff members are also brought in contact with these professionals.
The institute has an independent three storied building and a big playground adjacent to it. Each storey is separately allotted for hostel, educational activities and extra curricular activities. Physical training and sports activity take place in the playground.
Children are assigned groups according to their physical and psychological age and training is imparted accordingly. Normally the training is imparted right from taking care of daily routine to developing occupational skills. Feedback from parents is obtained on child’s performance during vacation at home. Modification in training pattern is made on the basis of feedback and suggestions of parents.