Projects in West Bengal

Creating New Horizons - VAANI has partnered with CINI-Asha for a project supported by Axis Bank and CCHD, UK to provide access to pre primary and primary education for deaf children in the slums of Kolkata.  This project currently covers 4 Municipal wards in slum areas of Kolkata.

VAANI is also partnering with Pandua Pratibandhi Kalyan Samity to provide training to families and professionals and increase awareness about deafness in the region.

VAANI has conducted a series of seminars on emotional and social needs of deaf children and their families in Kolkata, Ichapur, Darjeeling and Murshidabad. Representatives from each of these seminars attended a state-level planning meeting where the strategy for our work in West Bengal was finalised.

The main need that came out of these seminars was the need for filling up the gaps in communication by and with deaf children.

Our strategy for work in West Bengal:
- Meetings with families of deaf children
- Training programmes for:

• family members
• professionals who work with deaf children

Meetings with families
Apart from large seminars, VAANI organises meetings with parents of deaf children in different districts of West Bengal. Parents participate in these meetings with initial trepidation, but become comfortable as they listen to other parents/facilitators talk about their experiences. Parents have been participating in these meeting with great enthusiasm. The opportunity to share their grief, their isolation within the family and their desperation at their inability to communicate with their deaf children is a recurrent theme at all these meetings.

As an offshoot of these meetings, a lot of parents have come together to form support groups to share their experiences and to lobby with the authorities for their requirements. VAANI is committed to providing training to such family groups to improve the quality of the lives of their children.

Training
One of VAANI’s aims is that of building up the capacity of the primary stakeholders – family members, teachers and other professionals working with deaf children. Training is being provided to parents and professionals on basic communication skills, social and emotional needs of deaf children and management skills.