Not goodbye...See you later!

Our last day at SOREM the teachers had a party for us at tea time.  We ate sweets and they presented us with a pouch and book marks the students stitched and painted during vocational training.   They are beautiful and we love them!   We have a dance party (Bhangra, which is Punjabi dancing) and are reminded how this school empowers each and every student.  If only we could post the videos!  We leave here with new friends, new knowledge, and a common interest to commit our time to these special individuals. This is our personal first visit to SOREM, but it will not be our last!

Working the night shift

Most days we hold private consultations in the afternoon/evening for an hour and a half. Parents from around the area (and one from 4 hours away!) come and bring their children for some advice or information.  It’s wonderful to meet with families outside of SOREM who are so interested in learning more about what they can do for their son/daughter. Many of the families are already doing so much for their children—by teaching them at home, taking them to different therapies, or experimenting with different teaching methods. This collaborative approach with parents exemplifies our thoughts and practices on empowering the individuals we work with. More over, each family we work with offers another opportunity for us to engage in our own critical reflection about our work and the best practices for future partnerships. 

Everyday, something new!

 We look forward to working in the classrooms everyday.  When we enter the classroom, the students stand and say “Namaste Ma’am/Sir!”  Some of the students call Jayshree “Didi” (which means older sister).  Some come and shake our hands and it excites us to be with them for the day.  We learn everyday that this work is not about “helping” other people.  This work is selfless, in that it is about building a bond with people—their lives, their kids, their families.  We work together with teachers and students everyday, take ideas from one another, and brainstorm as a team. We see that they accept and love their students, and raise the expectations for them everyday.  We feel the ease of the students at SOREM—it is a place where they are expected to work hard, but are treated with equality and respect.   We also learn that we both struggle with autism/special needs awareness, and think about a place in society for the adults with special needs.  So many commonalities exist among so many cultural differences, and across so many miles. 

Look both ways...

A picnic in the park!

Friday we went to the Park and had a celebratory picnic to celebrate all of the awesome experiences we’ve had together over the past two weeks; it was so much fun! The students were so impressive. To say that crossing the street here in India is a challenge would be a vast understatement – New York City streets have nothing on this place!

Basically, you stand at the side of the street – look right first (because, you know, cars are driving on the opposite side of the road here!)  then look left. If there are no cars, rickshaws, horses, dogs, motorcycles, buses, scooters or bicycles coming at you full force, you make a run for it! Mostly, you hope for the best and so far, it’s worked out just fine. I mention this so that you can easily imagine what I mean when I say that 90 students (children and adults alike) all crossed the street on the way to the Park. One of the older students stepped out into the street and into the role of crossing guard and managed to stop cars, buses, bikes, dogs, scooters, and more so that all of the students and teachers could safely cross the street.

At the park, there was music, games and of course great food. It really was quite impressive to see close to 90 students with varying levels of physical and mental abilities sitting in a big circle all together playing games, singing and dancing together! We played a game similar to duck, duck, goose, ran races with the teachers and just had an amazingly fun time and delicious food. Until now our days have been filled with work, work and more work – it was nice to play!

Speaking of playing, everyone’s been asking what we do in our free time around here. Mostly, when we hear that question – we just laugh. We’ve literally been working 6 days/ week in SOREM and spending all of our free time preparing for the next day’s activities and 6-hour weekend workshops. We’ve been busy, but as savvy travelers have managed to learn our way around a bit and find some time to play. A favorite hangout has been the coffeeshops walking distance from the center where we all take turns using the one available outlet and the one computer that works with the wireless internet card. We’ve also managed to find a few good places for some after work relaxation and of course we’re all enjoying bargaining with the local street merchants for some beautiful handmade gifts for friends and family back home. We’re so thankful for Jayshree’s ever-growing Hindi vocabulary.  

We’re also so incredibly thankful to all of you who have made our visit here possible and the wonderful staff and families of SOREM who have made it an absolute pleasure to visit India once again! 

Connections

After reviewing printed versions of slides of previous workshops held at SOREM and comparing the information presented to the knowledge level of the staff with whom we were interacting, we decided to take a very practical approach to the workshop, heavy on examples.

The survey results are in and we’re excited to report that everyone loved it! One of the main concerns for people that we were able to address is the concern that we all have when presented with a formidable challenge: where do I even start? Behavior modification can be a challenging task that tests every fiber of your being. Modifying your own behavior is difficult enough, modifying someone else’s--obviously a much larger task. In order to help people learn where to start we broke everything down.  We presented examples in video, in situ, through case studies. Topics were checked for understanding before moving on and then reviewed again in a different way with a new case study, a new example, etc.

This visit to Chandigarh marks our third this year; this workshop was our first. Having attended and conducted workshops in the past, we knew that we needed to prime the teachers to help us present the material in order to get everyone on board for what can be a  very challenging task of behavior modification; this past week was spent doing just that. In daily three hour in-classroom training sessions and 1.5 hour teacher education workshops, we’ve been able to present and review a tremendous amount of skills for the teachers’ toolboxes!

The Saturday workshop was an amazing success and the workshops have been as well. That being said – we know the proof is in the pudding and to us the ‘pudding’ is the follow-up and data. As a professional organization devoted to this work full-time, we’re fortunate to have the resources to stay in touch with our colleagues here in India and be able to answer any questions as they arise during our weekly meetings. Things change fast when teaching students and in order to stay a step or two ahead of the student, you must be able to change quickly as well.

We’re very curious about how International work happened without the internet, or even phones-- we couldn’t do this work without Skype! We had a trial Skype call to make sure that everyone is able to sign on and talk without difficulty. Casey was on the call from the U.S.!  This was immediately following our call with our colleague in Kenya. That call included Casey in San Diego, Molly in  India and Pooja in Kenya – connecting across three continents and three different time zones was an incredible experience! 

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!