Parent Meeting

On 11th April 2015 Sandnya Sanwardhan Sanstha has its quarterly parent meeting at Wadegaonkar Hall, Blind Relief Society, South Ambazari Road at 2:15 pm. Parent meeting is forum where in parents can freely discuss issues related to their wards. Similarly, school management can also convey and discuss issues related to administration and progress of students. It is expected that parents should come prepaired with the home work for this meeting. We from our side consistently appeal to all parents for actively participating in these meetings so that these meetings can be maid more fruit full and productive in stead of a ritual. 

Night out Camp for mothers

L- Mrs.Puranik, President, Matrusangharsh, R-Dr.Mrs.Sagdeo, ex Dean, GMC

Our students with their mothers & well wishers

Mr.Radke demonstrating yoga asanas to audiance

Matrusangharsh members had a night out at Sandnya Srushti campus on 14-15th Feb, 2015. There were 34 mothers with their mentally challenged wards. There were  few lady trustees along with Sandnya well wishers also who stayed over night in Sandnya Srushti. The main objective of organizing this night out is to make these mothers of our students relax. The agenda for these days includes couple of events to help mothers with certain problems like, their own health issues & stress management. The ex-Deen of GMC, Nagpur was the resource person who through ppt explained the stress related points in our life and how it can be managed with little or no extra efforts on our part. She answered varied questions put by mothers.There was a brief cultural program presented by mothers, our staff and siblings as well. Saturday night there was a campfire also. This night out event is a yearly feature at Sandnya Srushti and year after year number of participants is going up, a good sign indeed. Sandnya not only does special education, vocational training & rehabilitation activities but it has a holistic approach. Sandnya tries to provide support to mentally challenged & their families in almost all fields. It provides extended support to family members including siblings also. It is this holistic approach that makes Sandnya stand apart.

Summer Vacation

Kalpataru special school of Sandnay Sanwardhan Sanstha is going through the summer vacations. The new academic session will open from 15th June. Vocational training and rehab units will continue to work except for a brief one week vacation. Few of our mentally challenged students have problem once the temperature goes above 40 degree. One of our rehab student simply can not stand summer heat, he is so uncomfortable that he has to be sent on summer holiday.
Principal is going through the procedure of promotion of students to next class, going through the syllabus of each student, contemplating number of fresh admissions etc. I do not think we can make more than few fresh admissions from the waiting list.
We at Sandnya are looking for physiotherapist and occupational therapist and a post of social worker is also vacant. Eligible candidates may apply to Secretary, Sandnay Sanwardhan Sanstha on e-mail - navindesh@gmail.com

What is the objective of the initiative

Sandnya always advocated small satellite units. Weather it is rehab unit or residential set up for mentally challenged. My view is small is beautiful. But that is partially true. The complete truth is small is well managed and so it could be beautiful. Though every small thing may not be beautiful that is also a fact. This is with reference to the new initiative named "Sandnya Chaitanya". Here the word ' beautiful' is almost meaning 'Divine'. In case of mentally challenged any work, project like special school, vocational training center or residential facility should not be any thing less than 'DIVINE' otherwise it is not likely to meet its desired objective or goal. I know most of the people may not agree with me but I have my own reason to have absolute faith in this. Many people feel compromising on few counts does not matter as long as it serves the purpose. But in my personal view trying to serve mentally challenged is nothing but trying to surrender to "GOD" and if it is true than there is no question of compromising.

The other thing I feel about is the objective it self. Am I looking to make it big and glorious or am I looking for Divinity in to it? Probably answer to this question decides the fate of our initiative.

So I feel more such small residential units should come with the active involvement of parents them selves. The active involvement of parents is not enough but it should be absolutely selfless. Here what I mean is if the particular parent is concerned about the welfare of his own ward, than the sole purpose of this type of attempt will get defeated. One will have to learn to look beyond the self interest and should work for the cause itself. Then only the answer to the real question of ' who will look after my child' when we as a parent are not in this world gets the true answer. What it really means is creating an infrastructure with such reliable functional system which is based on spiritual philosophy and not on materialistic ethos. It may appear difficult to follow but I believe it is not impossible to practice.

Sandnya Chaitanya is indeed a very commendably initiative and needs to be complemented and at the same time' Sandnya' assures all out support to this effort.

A welcome and desired initiative-Sandnya Chaitanya

It is right from day one of Sandnya that we have been trying to motivate parents of our mentally challenged students to come forward and take initiative in addressing various challenges being faced by them as parents.

One of the major concern as a parent of a mentally challenged child is the continuously nagging thought of who will take care of my child after me? One might make reasonably good financial provision, but who is going to take the responsibility of the mentally disabled person after the death of both parents? Secondly, there could be few institutions who after charging hefty amount claim to take the charge of the child. But when one goes through the way they manage the affairs parents do't dare to put their ward in this facility. The biggest hitch in this whole lot of the problem is that the subject i.e. mentally challenged person is not the self advocate since he is incapable of taking decision. This makes the problem more complex then one can realize or understand.

It is with this background we at Sandnya have been trying to motivate parents to come together in small numbers, form a formal organization, put your own resources in to it, seek support from the society and come up with a good facility which is to your own satisfaction. Yes we are talking about residential set up which will not only take care of lodging & boarding but shall give good thought to leisure time management with priority.

We at Sandnya are very happy and indeed welcome " Sandnya Chaitanya". This NGO is formed by 7-8 parents of our students along with 3-4 non parents as well which includes one of the trustees of SSS. Sandnya Chaitanya has completed the statutory formalities. Two- three parents from this group has a land as a joint holding and this land they will give on lease to Sandnya Chaitanya for free  to bring up the residential facility with desired amenities.

To begin with, Sandnya Chaitanya had organized a awareness come fund raising event on 30th April at Bhandara. This evening event was attended by Chiarman of SSS & addressed by Secretary of SSS high lighting the etiology and causes of mental disability to the benefit of  300 plus audience. There after one of the trustees of Sandnya Chaitanyaexplained the idea, concept and future plan of Sandnya Chaitanya as an organization.

This followed with the musical program from local artists which helped in raising a sizable donation amount from the audience. The organizers who include one of the members of Sandnya Chaitanya arranged for the nice dinner. The whole event was very well managed and all members of Sandnya Chaitanya attended the program.

I on behalf of Sandnya and on my personal behalf congratulate and compliment all these parents,  wish them all the success and hope few more such initiatives will follow in the near future which in turn try to answer the worry of " who after me" to some extent. All the best !!!

News updates

Asha for Education, US has arranged a donation of 3 laptops for Sandnya. These used laptops were donated by UTI Nagpur branch. These laptops will be used in office and PC will be shifted to our vocational training section for our mentally challenged students. We will try to make our office paperless in due time. At the same time by using PC in Vocational section we can train the eligible students.

Sandnya News: From next academic year Sandnya News will be up graded to 4 pages from currently 2 pages. There would be dedicated columns like, "from parents", from teachers or from trust office etc. We wish to include our well wishers also for expressing their views as well.

Driver: We are in the process of recruiting fourth driver and interviews are under way.

Vacations: Care group and pre- primary students have gone on summer vacations from 15th April. They will come back on 15th June. Remaining students from special schooling will go on vacation from 1st May and shall return to classes from 15th June.

Residential camp: As usual Sandnya is conducting a residential camp for their selected students from 4 th May to 11 th May in Sandnya Srushti campus. The student selection process is underway and the list of selected candidates will be declared soon. This camp is closely supervised by President and Secretary of SSS as they also stay here along with students.

Why we should depend on Government for everything?

In todays news paper there is a news which says that in Anandpur Sahib a Sant Labha Singh Baba has built a bridge costing about Rs. 20 crore with the " Kar seva" from villagers and with out government money. Sant Labh Singh Baba is not the only one to do this. There are lot of people in this country who have been doing lot of work for public good sans government help.

I personally feel why should we look at government or public representatives for every thing? Are they not acting like agents and using only our money? Apart from this, these people executing public work has its own problems like corruption and escalated cost as well and in turn higher taxes.

There are many areas where NGOs can perform far better. From our own experience of  running 'Sandnya' since last 20 years is a ample proof of what I say. We have been operating with out government aid since last 20 years and the only funding source is donations from philanthropic people. We have a monthly expanse of Rs.3.00 lacks plus and there are 45 people employed. It is worth noting that in last 20 years the salary of our staff is not delayed even for one day. I sincerely believe that ours is not a exceptional case. There must be lot of NGOs working for good cause with honesty and sincerity and obviously with out government aid.

In last month only "Sandnya" has purchased third bus for its mentally challenged students which has costed us Rs.15.4 lacks. And the whole amount came through small donations with in a period of 18 months. We do not consider this as a miracle but it is only the result of sincere, honest, and selfless efforts. Sandnya is a Divine Intervention and thus functions smoothly.