Ashoka Fellows Partnering with Each Other, Brings New Hope to Mumbai’s IDUs

July 15, 2010 11:47 am

by Talya Gillman, Newsletter April 2009

In May, 2009, Sankalp will officially launch the Sankalp-AMBA CEEIC (Centre for the Economic Empowerment for the Intellectually Challenged) Project, a revolutionary programme geared at providing introductory computer training to recovering clients, helping them develop marketable professional skills, enabling them to find group work in the lucrative data entry sector, and to eventually earn small amounts of income. The training is being adapted from a teaching model developed by Sugandha Sukrutaraj, founder of AMBA CEEIC, an NGO that provides computer skills, data entry, and back office instruction to individuals with intellectual challenges at over 15 centers throughout India. The partnership was established when Ms. Sukrutaraj and Mr. Eldred Tellis, both recipients of the prestigious Ashoka Fellowship, met and discussed the need for Sankalp’s clients to “be productive” as a means towards successful recovery.

The initial phase of the programme began in March, 2009 when Sankalp acquired several laptops with Ms. Sukrutaraj’s assistance, and interested clients from all of Sankalp’s drop-in centres took part in a variety of ‘non-computer activities’ aimed at teaching the English alphabet, along with actual computer exposure exercises, several times a week. In April, Ms. Jyoti Pohane, one of Sankalp’s counselors and now coordinator of the Sankalp-AMBA CEEIC Project and AJWS volunteer Talya Gillman visited AMBA CEEIC’s central training center in Bangalore, along with associate trainers Mr. Raju Sharma and Mr. Ramzan Shaikh, themselves recovering addicts who will assist Sankalp staff in all aspects of the training. The group spent four days observing the teaching methods and work processes that AMBA CEEIC’s clients experience. Particularly interesting to Raju and Ramzan was getting to know AMBA CEEIC’s trainers and students, all of whom possess various developmental disabilities yet operate computers and perform complicated data entry tasks with little error. Both associate trainers mentioned that spending time at AMBA CEEIC helped them feel more capable and empowered to do similar work in Mumbai: “If they can do it, why can’t we?” they asked. One of the central components of the visit was for Raju and Ramzan to become familiar with the non-computer activities and games that help students learn the letters in the alphabet as visual images; pictures to be identified and not necessarily ‘read.’ They spent time participating in such exercises as well as learning basic computer functions, which they will now pass on to Sankalp’s clients.

With the official launch of the Project, twenty two of Sankalp’s most promising clients will take part in a similar intensive residential training process, spending several months improving their knowledge of the English alphabet and keyboard layout, basic computer operation, and various other skills necessary for acquiring data entry contract work from large companies. The opportunity to interact with computers for the first time was such an exciting and empowering experience for many of the clients that their faces literally shone; thus the client’s reactions upon initial exposure to the computer were symbolic of the promise that this Project holds!