Providing quality life to all

National Day for the Mentally Challenged

The Sadhana Institute for the Mentally Challenged organised a field day for its students ahead of the National Day for the Mentally Retarded on Monday.

Activities like cricket, yoga and physical fitness drill were organised for about 150 students aged 3-years onwards.

Speaking at the occasion, P Madhusudan Reddy, secretary and founder of the Institute said that their vision is to provide the quality of life to every person with mental retardation that is equal to other citizens in the country; in that they will have independent living and community integrating to the maximum extent possible.

“Our mission is to empower the persons with mental retardation, through constant professional endeavours, to have access to the rehabilitation interventions by qualified people viz. educational, therapeutic, vocational, employment, social activities, sports and cultural services with full participation,” he said.

Students at the Institute are assessed by special educators, speech therapists and physiotherapists and taught daily living skills, self help skills, basic communication, reading and writing skills, arithmetic skills, orientation and mobility and vocational skills; some of them have multiple disabilities of blind, epileptic and cerebral palsy.

In connection with the National Day for the Mentally Retarded on December 8, Reddy said, “There are about seven crore people who suffer from physical disabilities of which one crore suffer from mentally retarded cases, which is high among the other 18 disabilities.

In Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, there are 60 lakh physically disabled cases of which, five lakh are mentally challenged cases and the number is increasing constantly every year. There is a need for opening of more such NGOs and the Government should come forward to support and eradicate the physical and mental disabilities cases to minimal level.”