On February 26th, we celebrated Founder’s Day. This makes 17 years of dedicated service to abandoned children with intellectual disability (ID).

When it comes to the children’s welfare, we make no compromise. They are extremely vulnerable, and we are entrusted with the honourable duty of nurturing them into the incredible persons that they are, while enabling an environment that they can truly call ‘home’. Programs and services aimed at their personal development have always retained their position at the very top of our organizational goals. Although moving us out of our comfort zone, the two large-scale projects we are undertaking this year are in direct response to the critical need in our country for safe havens for abandoned children.

Founder’s Day this year was celebrated a little differently. On the 26th we held our annual Sports Day at Good Shepherd Convent, Nungambakkam, followed by a lovely lunch for our children, staff and benefactors. On the 27th, we held a Cultural Day at our home. It was a great time to take stock of our journey – documenting what works and what doesn’t, and setting a new roadmap. Each of our major Departments (Special Education, Physiotherapy, Medical, and Vocational Training) made short presentations on their Department journeys since 2003. Taking stock is vital in helping us understand where we are now and how that compares to where we would like to be. It also focuses the spotlight back on the children - our raison d'être. Our special thanks to the 50 benefactors who took time out of their busy schedules to be with us on these days. We deeply appreciate it.

One of the many tangible results of our Special Mom Program is that new alliances and partnerships are being formed for the benefit of the children. Our relationship with SPASTN (Spastics Society of Tamilnadu) blossomed especially after our 2018 Special Mom Awards event.

On January 30th, members from SPASTN (Washermanpet Branch) came over to screen our children for signs of hearing and vision loss. Babies and small children can fail the new-born hearing screening due to vernix in the ear canal, fluid in the middle ear, or because of movement or crying during the test. To actually test for hearing loss, it is important for follow-up appointments for a confirmatory test. And routine vision screening and/or eye examinations are vitally important to detect problems before a child’s development is compromised. Abandoned children run the risk of being deprived such vital services. We are happy that SPASTN will be conducting regular camps at our home, going forward. This ties up with our community outreach plan where we will work to extend this service to other special children in our locality.

Sri Arunodayam’s children have been busy attending programs and fairs across the city in recent months. In addition to their regular academic classes, they are encouraged to take part in extra-curricular activities such as dance, art, sports, and music because they are incredibly talented.

At the Javate 2019 event held on February 2nd, 16 schools and more than 60 students participated in talent competitions at Lady Andal Venkatasubba Rao School, Harrington Road, Chennai. Our children walked away with most of the prizes. Srimathy won First Prize for Solo Dancing, and our little girls for Group Dancing. Our little boys won Second Prize for Group Dancing, and Narmada won Third Prize for Art.

On January 26th our children’s products through Prayatna were displayed at Kinder Nest, KK Nagar. The products were also on display at the Hindu Spiritual Fair, Guru Nanak College, Velachery from January 29th to February 4th.

Back home at Prayatna, we implemented a new training program for the development of sambrani (balsamic resin for incense) and agarbathi (incense sticks). In 10 days our boys made 2000 packs of sambrani and 20,000 agarbathis. The Good Shepherd Convent girls also worked at Prayatna for a day helping to make paper bags, sambrani and agarbathis.