Activities
The Students Welfare fund
All our teaching and non-teaching employees as well some of our well-wishers contribute some amount to a fund specially created for providing financial assistance to poor and needy students to enable them to meet the expenses of uniforms, medical treatment, rickshaw fare etc.
Parents and Teachers Association
Chetana has also founded an association called ‘SAAD’ for the teachers and guardians which holds regular meetings. Numerous workshops, seminars and lectures have also been organized for the guardians over the years.
Trips and Excursions
Socialization forms an extremely important element in the training programme for the Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. With this in view, we regularly organize small trips to markets, gardens, spinning & sugar mills, banks, dairies and newspaper printing press etc. We have organized several trips to places such as Pune, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Mysore, Bangalore and Rajasthan. One most memorable trip was to New Delhi, where 25 students witnessed the Republic Day parade.
Sports Meets
Sports are an essential component of any training programme as they have great potential for emotional development of the children. Chetana has always considered sports as an important activity. We have organized sports meets for the special schools from western Maharashtra working for Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities on eight occasions so far. The teachers in these schools were invited for a Special Olympics Preparatory Workshop. Our Students have been participating in the Special Olympics for the past 20 years and have won several prizes at the State and National level.
It was a glorious moment for the school when our student, Amit Sutar, participated in the Indian football team at the 1999 Special Olympics at South Carolina, USA. He returned much enriched by his new experience. We have enlisted him now as a member of the staff. We are proud to mention that our sports teacher, Mr. Sudhir More was selected to coach the Indian football team which participated in the International Special Olympics meet, held at Ireland in 2003, our student Kedar Desai was selected for power lifting game who participated in international Special Olympics held in Athens, Greece, in June 2011 and student Aashish Savekar was selected for floor hockey who participated in world winter games held in South Koria in January 2013.And in December 2013 two of our students Omkar Rane and prajakta Patil participated in Asia Pacific world games held in Australia.
Have a look at various activities conducted at Chetana Apangmati Vikas Sanstha
Teaching them various activities related to daily life is a prime motto of Chetana. This further may lead them to be self reliant.
Chetana Udyog Kendra
The final stage of the training programme for disabled persons is rehabilitation. Given the importance, we have started a sheltered workshop for our students. Training is offered in the production of all types of office files including box and lace files, portfolios, registers etc. Similarly, in the carpentry and wood craft, liquid soap &phenol making, screen printing, small diwali wax-lamps, Batik printing, paper mache’ products etc. Last five years we are making Ganesh idols from paper mache’, and this echo friendly activity is receiving huge response from the society.
Students working in this vocational training centre earn a stipend from Rs. 150 to Rs. 1000 per month. Some students look after marketing of these products and earn a commission on their orders. It is simply exhilarating to watch their faces sparkling with pride and joy when they start earning on their own.
Over the years a number of our students have been gainfully employed. They are thus respectable members of society and making their parents proud.