Nanagu Shaale began almost two decades ago.

We began when the government had decided to close down the School Readiness Program Centers.

Then, Fourth Wave Foundation, we entered into the gap.

And we said that we need to address the issue of education for children with disabilities in Karnataka, so we set up four units across the state, North Karnataka, which today are four units covering around 200 children.

Now today we are expanded into 12 units which cover around 600 children for all disabilities across the districts of North Karnataka and we hope to, in the future, expand to other states, across the state and to ensure that all children with disabilities get equitable education at par with others.

When it comes to the education of children with disabilities, especially in the state of Karnataka, they might be enrolled but not often they attend the schools that they’re enrolled in, and that’s where Fourth Wave Foundation comes in, with our School Readiness Program Center.

Now what is a School Readiness Program Centre or an SRP?

Uh this is a center, a classroom in a government school where we cater to 50 children.

So, currently we cater to 6 to 18 uh because uh for the right to education for children with disabilities it is extended up to 18, so we cater to 6 to 18, basically the 10th grade is what we look at for each child.

So, we have 12 centers, six…600 children, so each center has 50 children where we have divided them into 25 children who have mild and moderate disabilities and the rest 25 are from severe to profound disabilities.

Now each of these children come at least once a week, now that doesn’t mean they don’t come the other days, but they have to be at the center at least once a week where we have two teachers designated to 25-25 children and they get their art therapy, their physiotherapy, their speech therapy.

An individualized education plan is made when the child first comes to center and eventually the goal is conducted for the child.

We have quarterly meetings, we have quarterly reviews, where the art therapist, physiotherapist, teacher and a coordinator from Bangalore sits and sees whether child has achieved the goal.

If not, another set of plan is made.

But if the child has achieved the goal, we go ahead with a new goal for the child.

So this is what we’ve been doing at the School Readiness Program Center.

We try our best to make sure that the children uh come to the same government school that they might be enrolled in, because like I said, the mild and moderate children are also children that might attend the same school.

So we make sure that it is in a premise that they’re familiar with.

And why we focus on getting these centers in a government school is because we want the child to familiarize with the environment of a school.

They also need to have the feeling of wearing the uniform and going to school, just like their peers.

So which is why we uh focus and which is why we emphasize on having these centers in the government school because once they are mainstream, they get mainstream into the same school that they are in.

So, they already know the…teachers are aware, the peers also are aware of them, the school management is aware.

So, it, we make sure that the environment is conducive and the child uh gets mainstream into the same school.

And, I have to say, in these past 3 to 4 years, we’ve had over 40 children write the 10th board exam.

And these are children with severe uh multiple disabilities, cerebral palsy, but they’ve achieved what people thought they couldn’t.

So, this is a typical prototype of our SRP center that we have set up in the rural places uh in the state of Karnataka, especially North Karnataka.

And this is how each of our 12 centers look like.

Now, if I have to mention, these are the physiotherapy equipment that are present for the child uh which also are either sponsored or given by the government which is already present.

And these are the art therapy activities, uh the models that we use, the play items, the crafts, the paints, the art, everything is included in one shelf and the other shelf is the individual 50 files.

So, there are 50 children, so 50 files for each child.

And that file contains uh the child’s profile, how the child has been, how did the child get the disability, the doctor’s report, the disability card, their bank statements that…about their ID proof and it also has the activities done.

So every time a child comes to the center uh when they do some activity on the paper, even if it’s just two lines, uh we put it there and this is all done by teachers who are trained at our Bangalore facility, that is over here.

And these teachers are from the community itself and why we do that is because they know the community well and which is why we take those teachers in and who teach the children in the local language, which is Kannada.

And things go very well over here and we also have a lot of tech based learning where we have lot of videos and lot of therapy that happens online, because not every place a physiotherapist or a speech therapist can reach and we take the help of technology and we get the children receive the therapy that is required because that eventually helps them also to get mainstream and become more inclusive in the society that they are in.

There is a timetable for each child. The teacher…two teachers decide when the child has to come, how often, if, probably uh when a child is a home based child, the child mostly comes with physiotherapy or speech therapy, so time is allotted, you know, okay, physiotherapist is going to come on a specific day, then the parent gets the child, they do uh the therapy and they go back.

What we also emphasize is that with a child, one caretaker has to be present, because once we do he activities in school, we want them to go continue it when they go back home, you know.

When it comes to art therapy and physiotherapy, there has to be continuous movement happening because if there’s a gap, then it becomes even more difficult for the physiotherapist to get the child show the improvement.

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The Fourth Wave Foundation’s inclusive education program, “Schools where all belong”, or in Kannada known as “Nanagu Shaale”, began with the support of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which is the implementing program of the education department in the…all over the country, and specifically in Karnataka.

As a part of it, we also involve various stakeholders, covering the teachers, the parents, the government officials, the department, the SDMs, the education department, the uh uh the gram panchayats, and with all of them…

So this program is not just driven by an NGO or one government alone, we try to involve a model of “multi-stakeholder model”, so that it can effectively reach the last child.

Education for the last child, “Education for all” becomes a reality in our lifetime.