Incredible India...

When you arrive in India, there’s propaganda everywhere, partially as a result of the Commonwealth games and partially on account of the amazing amount of nationalism here. You see it everywhere: “Incredible India” and India is Incredible! From the food to the clothes to the people to the sites, everything about it is incredible, in so many ways, as you’ve already read in our earlier post.

However, to call the facilities and teachers at SOREM incredible seems to be an understatement – they are truly exceptional. When I was here last January, I was so impressed with everything, and this time SOREM seems to have outdone themselves once again. The Honorary Secretary (and Founder) Ms.Promila Chandra Mohan has been able to start to focus her energies on some of the educational services offered. For the past two years, she’s been extremely busy with creating a state of the art center and building up both the recreation and vocational training services offered. It’s great timing for our partnership to be gaining so much momentum! Additionally, it’s exciting to see our presence here taking hold as the country is starting to focus on learners with autism. It’s exciting to think about where this center and the country will be in five years when it comes to providing services for children with autism. We’re honored to be a part of such a huge movement.

SOREM serves over 50 individuals with varying degrees of physical and mental challenges. Recently, they’ve increased their enrollment of students with autism. Two of the classrooms contain only students with autism, and many of the other classrooms have students with autism as well. We’ll be working to train all of the teachers in evidence-based teaching methodologies. Additionally, we’re providing private consultations to families with children with autism and holding Saturday workshops to provide training to the general population.

Last Saturday was our first workshop and it went amazingly well! Brad and Jayshree worked really hard to examine the notes from workshops that had been conducted previously here at SOREM as well as build a workshop that specifically fit the teacher’s needs. The success of the workshop was measured by the level of interaction and insightful comments and suggestions! We’ll be writing a full post about the workshop tomorrow evening, once we’ve compiled the surveys and can let you know the results. Crackers exploding in the night sky and loud music being piped in…another night in India!

We're in INDIA!

After hours of travel, the team finally meets up! Brad and Molly left from L.A. and flew into Delhi, and took a bus to Chandigarh to meet up with Jayshree, who came in from Ahmedabad where her family lives. After only one day of rest (that was filled with the requisite tourist visit to the local market), we headed to SOREM for the first day of observation and collaboration. The school is gorgeous with large pictures of the students covering the hallway, multiple classrooms including speech, PT, and vocational activities, a garden, a dance studio, a playground, and large basketball court. The staff are unequivocally gracious, and welcomed us into their classrooms to meet their students, young to old, who all greeted us by saying "Namaste!" We met with the Honorary Secretary and founder, Ms. Promila Chandra Mohan, to discuss details about our 3 week stay. Most of the day was spent observing the teachers and students in the classroom, and making plans. Leaving SOREM after the first day, we are all equally excited for the work we are doing here.

The food is amazing, the shopping (and bargaining) quite an experience. Jayshree speaks Gujarati (where her family is from), and has been helping the crew get around via Rickshaw with her limited Hindi. Also, we can't forget to mention our honorary team member and in-country ambassador Avikal Malik who has been a considerate and invaluable friend to the project.

.....Back at the guest house, the crackers are so loud we can barely hear each other. Apparently it's festival season--starting with Diwali in early November and moving into weddings back to back through January. The music is ongoing with singing into loudspeakers (of course). It's a party out there!  In go the ear plugs.......have to get up early for a full day of work tomorrow!