Srividhya Center for Special Children

1. Srividhya Center for Special Children 2009-10 Renewal and Status

2. Background • Srividhya was founded in 1999 with the notion that “special children” can be rehabilitated to make them self-sufficient. • Ms.ShanthiVenkat who had more than 15 years of experience working with varying level of mental disabilities in kids, started the non-profit with encouragement from parents and well-wishers. • Children suffering from disabilities ranging from autism to severe mental retardation are admitted. • There is no curriculum – students at SriVidhya are prepared to become self-sufficient and earn their living if possible. • Most of them graduate in 12-14 years. Some take much longer than that. Dropout rate is around 35% mostly because parents lose patience or retardation becomes severe and requires chronic medical treatment.

3. Ms.ShathiVenkat Founder – Srividhya Center for Special Children

4. Why we got involved • Srividhya raises Rs 10 – 14lakhs a year. In addition they are very active in applying for grants, Govt funds and corporate grants. • Srividhya runs a hostel for 30-40 students who need continuous monitoring or are seen as burden by their own families. • Running the institution in rental premises has been difficult and the stigma attached to leasing to such institutions has been forcing them to pay high rents. • They were on the path to raising money and saving from their annual expenses to move into a permanent building estimated to cost between Rs.50-65lakhs. • Our commitment was for 3 years – help them save enough to move into a permanent building. • Land allotment in progress from Govt of AP – well-wishers and generous donors are expected to pitch in about Rs.20lakhs. Srividhya currently has Rs19lakhs in their building corpus fund. • 2009-10 would be the last year Srividhya would receive Asha support.

5. Current Status • 138 children enrolled. About 100 students present in the school any given day. Absences are long owing to medical treatments or parents reluctant to send children to school. • About 50 students are enrolled in the hostel of these 35 children are under privileged. • About 50 students attend the school from home and 30 of them are under privileged. • Students whose parents can afford to contribute a monthly fee, do so and this is saved as corpus funds. • Asha-SV funds Srividhya’s entire running expenses including rent, hostel expenses, teacher’s salaries and general administration. • Funds have been disbursed for first half of 2008-09; second disbursement for that year has been pending. • Site visit done in January 2009 (Niranjan M) and February 2010 (Surya Potharaju).

6. Funding – in a snapshot • Amount to be disbursed immediately Rs.8,57,940 which is the 2nd installment for 2008-09. POLL QUESTION: Do you approve Srividhya project renewal, budget for INR 8,57,940, which is the remaining amount from INR 17,15,880 allotted for the entire year 2008-09? CHOICES AND RESULTS- Yes , 11 votes, 100.00% - No, 0 votes, 0.00% • New budget for 2009-10 Rs 14,91,480 at 25% lower budget level than the previous year. Insistence from our side to cut costs and relieve us during our difficult time.

7. Budget for 2009-10

8. Why should we support SriVidhya? Divya aged 14 years is moderately retarded but comes under general retardation category. She was 8 years old when she joined us. Her father is no more and her mother remarried. She has hence no home and stays with us only. She has very short memory. She can't remember even numbers from 1 to 10.  After training , she looks after other children. She has developed very good domestic skills like cutting vegetables etc., She has  also excellent dancing skills. Her mental age is 5 years at present.

9. Why should we support SriVidhya?(2) Ajay aged 23 years is with us since inception. He is autistic with moderate retardation. He looks like a normal child. Initially he had no self-help skills ; no toilet control and had behavioral problems like hurting himself.  Although he has not shown improvement in academics ; He has developed good behavioral skills and is excellent in communicating his needs although he can't speak. He is one of the Twins (not identical).His other Twin is an IIT grad who currently works for Accenture Bangalore. Ajay is son of our President-Executive Committee, Mrs.S.Rama

10. Why should we support SriVidhya? (3) This is what they become capable of doing – when they receive training.

11. Srividhya’s youngest Questions??