Funds is not the problem

It is a common argument that without money nothing can be done. We need money for doing anything and every thing in this world. So it was not a surprise that during one of our trust preparation meetings, question of money or funding was raised. Most of the would be trustee members were very apprehensive regarding this monetary part of the project called Sandnya Sanwardhan Sanstha. When I said we should not take government's financial aid, than most of the members were not very much convinced about this approach. The prompt question came up was " where from funds will come?". I said, initially to start with, all trustee members will contribute a certain amount and we shall initiate the work. Then we shall begin approaching our social net work individually and shall seek financial help for this work. The next question came up was, to how many people we could contact and can we ask donations from the same person again and again? To this I said, in first faze, we will be talking to our first contact who can be a relative or Friend also who has faith in us. When we finish with this, we shall try to reach second level extended contact. I said, in my opinion, by this time our work, sincerity, honesty and consistency should start generating funds from unknown quarters. Most of my co- members did not get convinced with this justification but since I was the most vocal member and was already leading from the front, others had no choice and the proposal was unanimously passed. But whatever I was saying I truly believed in to it and had no doubt about its success. In consecutive meetings, one of the members raised the doubt that why should the same people pay repeatedly? I said, it is like going to a temple. All of us go to temples and bow before the deity and then before leaving, surrender offerings as per our capacity. And we do all this for the whole of our life and for number of times. Are we not doing all these things repeatedly? But than what makes us do this? It is the faith which compels us to do this. Similarly, if our work is for the needy, if it is done selflessly, if it is done with sincerity, honesty and with consistency, than people will have faith in you and your work and they will support you morally and financially as well. The daunting task is to create this faith in the minds of people at large and the rest will be done by the All Mighty God. If I truly believe that, every thing is being done by the God I am only the medium to execute the will of the God, than things will happen the way they are suppose to. As I said earlier, my other members did not argue and we started working with out government aid. In due course of time we got good response from all people. We kept our promise of transparency, honesty, consistency and selfless attitude through all these years and people in turn continued to support us with more and more trust. I knew and I realise that earning the trust is a slow process and is like building a house by putting brick on brick and shall always take time and curing as well. So we did this meticulously and with full faith in the universal statement that " if you desire some thing sincerely from the bottom of your heart selflessly, than the whole universe conspires to see that your desire is fulfilled". How true it is? I have always experienced this, and that is why getting funds or desired manpower is never a problem. The work of Sandnya Sanwardhan Sanstha has never suffered for lack of funds. Whenever, we have desired any thing sincerely and genuinely than God has always arranged through some or the other means.

Parent Relief Centre of SSS

Parent Relief Centre[ground flr.]

In the very first year of Sandnya Sanwardhan Sanstha we noticed a typical problem related to mentally challenged and their families. What we observed was, that, in the family having mentally challenged child, there was lack of proper communication amongst the parent i.e. mother and father of the child. Not only this, in many cases there prevailed a sort of tension or rift between them. We noticed many instances of even divorce due to this reason. We were trying to study and find out the reason and probable solution on this aspect. It was by and large the blame game parents were playing. We were talking to parents individually to get to the under current of this situation. Because apparently nothing felt like going wrong but we were sensing the absence of team work in the concerned parents. After giving lot of thought to the problem we came out with a idea of Parent Relief Centre. We thought of starting a temporary residential arrangement for our students. In the family, if the tension prevailed than their mentally disabled child, who is essentially our student will be put in this PRC [Parent Relief Centre] for about 10 to 15 days. We will take all his care including lodging, boarding and of course schooling as well. Thus mother and father of this mentally disabled child will get some relief by way of physical arrangements and at the same time will get an opportunity to come closer to each other emotionally also. It is a human nature that as long as the problem concerned is facing us, we can not rationally think and try to find out a place, person or situation which can be squarely blamed except us. But when the same problem is out of sight even for the temporary phase, we are likely to rationalise our approach towards other concerned part's view points also. We thus many times realise that we were extra harsh on the other person. In such a frame of mind, I might even apologise to the said person who in turn being in the same remorse or regret mode not only accepts the apology but is likely to extend the apology him self both of them being sailing in the same boat. It is likely to diffuse the tension and can eliminate the misunderstanding also. This is the original idea behind the PRC concept. We further realised that this PRC will be very useful in emergency like medical emergency in the family or sudden unexpected instances like road accidents or death of some family member.
With this idea we built the five self contained three bedded rooms at Sandnya Srushti. The construction work on this project finished about seven years back. During the same time, our land lord of Nagpur premises requested us to vacate the building for his personal use. We were under the social obligation to vacate, had to shift our school activity to Sandnya Srushti.So the plan of implementing the concept of PRC was kept in abeyance. We did expand our infrastructure at Sandnya Srushti gradually over the years but unfortunately we were not getting the desired staff for PRC. Another pressing problem was getting funds for running this PRC. We are already incurring monthly expense of about more than Rs. 2.3 laks. And since we do not take government aid the only funding source is donations from philanthropic people and organizations. For this PRC we additionally need about Rs.15000/- to 20000/- per month and that would be minimum. Getting trained special educator is a real problem. For such reasons the idea of PRC is still in abeyance. But we are hopeful to come back to it as soon possible.

By: Navin Deshpande, email: sss_mr@rediffmail.com

Website: http://www.sandnya.org/

Sandnya- attempt of integration at all level

When we were in the making of Sandnya Sanwardhan Sanstha i.e. formulating statutory and ethical modalities of the trust, we were discussing many factors and all possible dimensions of the problem of mentally challenged and autistic. It was during the very first few meeting that we thought of social stigma attached to this problem and segregation of mentally challenged. We thought if we as a organization for mentally challenged has to propagate integration, than it should be practiced right from organization it self. This basic thought prompted us to include all non-parents as trustees except one who is the chairman. Thus chairman is the only trustee member of Sandnya Sanwardhan Sansntha who is a parent and all other trustees are non-parent. So whenever we formulate policies for the trust and the action plan, chairman can guide us in a better way as he is a parent also and understands the problem of mentally challenged and their families. And all others as non-parents learn to accommodate and realise the gravity of the situation. This helps us in making decisions which are in the interest of the mentally challenged and their parents. These non-parent trustees thus in turn help in promoting this cause with their social networking and society at large. In all our programmes, thus all trustees help in bringing additional people from the society to come and see and to get first hand knowledge about mentally challenged. This helps us in spreading the message like, mental disability is not the disease but a condition and there is no medicine on it or mental disability does not mean work disability and many other facts about this problem. It is this approach of ours which helps us in not only working in the best interest of the cause and the beneficiary but also gives us a rare distinction of being a NGO in true sense who works with out government aid since last more than seventeen years. Since, as a policy matter we do not take government grant, the only funding source is the donations from philanthropic people and organizations. And if we have to seek donations from people, than we must go to them, talk to them about this mental disability as a problem and show them what we have been doing. In turn people will ask questions regarding mentally challenged and the problem as such and we get an opportunity in spreading the positive massage in this regard. And this process of disseminating the information in turn helps us generating donations and we can function with out financial support from the government. It is this public support in terms of funding which helps us in giving best services and functional and financial transparency in our work culture. Because of this approach of ours we have a very big moral and financial support of people. Sandnya is now considered as a standard in it self as far as morality and welfare of mentally challenged is concerned.

By: Navin Deshpande, Secretary, SSS

SSS - what is so different ?

It must be about twelve or thirteen years back. We, means Sandnya Sanwardhan Sanstha were in the Nagpur city and in the rented premises. Though it was independent, but was a residential block. The accommodation was not enough and was a bit congested. In the second half of the day I was sitting in the office. I got two visitors, they were off course acquaintances. They had come to see the school and the activity. After I showed them around the school and introduced them to the world of mental disability and autism, we settled in my office for a cup of coffee. I was trying to tell about the organization and its philosophy, trust principles and our code of conduct. Visitors were listening very intently. I was telling them that SSS does not take government aid. And the only funding source is donations from philanthropic people and organizations. One of the visitors asked why should you not take government funding when it is ultimately our own money and would be used for a noble cause? I said, I fully agree with you. But SSS has adopted the approach of integration of mentally challenged at all possible level and that is one of the reasons we are away from government funding. It is not that we are not eligible for it but by option we do not take it. My visitors did not understand the relationship between social integration and funding source. Since they had time, I took this opportunity to explain them about SSS and its genesis.
By Navin Deshpande

Welcome to Sandnya Sanwardhan Sansntha, A Research Institute For The Development and Rehabilitation of Mentally Handicapped. This is a purely charitable, non profiting and non aided organization committed to the noble cause of mental disability since 1993 and is based at NAGPUR, INDIA.

By Navin Deshpande