19 years of empowering the specially-abled, Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan celebrates its 19th Annual Day
Dr. Vandana Sharma – Director MBCN, Dr. Kamlesh Kumar Pandey – Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Mr. Manpreet Singh Chadha, Vice Chairman, Wave Group
It’s been 19 years that Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan, one of India’s largest schools for specially-abled, has been enabling the ‘children with special needs’. To commemorate the achievement, the school celebrated its 19th Annual Day today. Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan works under the aegis of The Ponty Chadha Foundation that works towards the social and economic development of the society. On this momentous occasion, the school announced the launch of its new initiative, Centre for Research, Innovation and Technology for Disability -which is another step towards improving the lives of the specially-abled through high quality research and development of new technology, support services and facilities.
The R&D at the centre will focus on the social aspects of disability, it will identify barriers to the social inclusion of disabled people and produce policy recommendations to appropriate stakeholders. The first project under the aegis of this centre would be ‘Virtual Learning Programme’ – a learning platform for teaching life skills using latest technologies. It will be a mobile based self-instructional interventional tool for parents in remote corners of India who do not have access to special education and therapeutic interventions.
On the occasion, Mr. Manpreet Singh Chadha, Vice-Chairman, Wave Group said: “We try and walk on the path shown to us by Sh. Ponty Chadha and every year we move closer to his vision of creating an environment where children with special needs could become socially and economically independent. With the launch of the R&D centre and the ‘Virtual Learning Programme’, we aim to provide parents and teacher access to special education programme in the remotest parts of the country on their mobile phones. We believe that these initiatives will give an impetus to our on-going efforts in bringing vital changes to the lives of hundreds of specially-abled children.”
Speaking on the occasion, Ms. Vandana Sharma, Director, Mata Bhagwanti Chadha Niketan said, “As we celebrate 19 wonderful years of this great institution, we have undertaken some very innovative methods to bring the specially-abled children into the mainstream. With the launch of the R&D centre, we plan to partner with Universities, researchers, and organisations to create ICT-based accessible technology environment. We will continue to channelize our efforts towards empowering the specially-abled.”
The other initiatives by the school include Vaakya, a picture based app available in both iOS & Android platforms, designed for people who are speech impaired, Swayam, a programme under which the school operates a shopping portal, integrated with its website (www.mbcnschool.org) that allows customers to buy hand-made products made by the special children of the school. Emotional Well Programme – Share and Care is another such initiative which helps children and parent cope with stress. The school also conducts a number of year-long campaigns to raise awareness regarding the needs of the specially-abled people.
With dance performances and other programmes highlighting the theme – ‘Tele- Hungama’, the students enthralled the parents and guests. The school also felicitated students’ for their achievements in various national & International competitions and sports tournaments.
Set up by late Gurdeep (Ponty) Singh Chadha, MBCN is a school for special children. To educate and prepare special children to live within the community the school was set up in 1999 with a mission to make these children self-dependent — physically, socially and financially.
