Life-skills workshops for independent lives

Short term/Long Term objectives

Long Term - Ensure healthy lives, wellbeing and promote opportunities and equality for those with
special needs in Kerala
Mid Term - Increase the capacity and increase awareness of importance to stimulate independent
living
Short Term To deliver employability stimulation programmes for those with special needs
Summary
When looking at the micro level of Special needs employability in India, it may seam as though there
has been significant progress. There is now significant pressure on the government to implement the
disability act of 1995 and corporate organisations show an increased awareness about this. 3% of
government jobs are reserved for individuals with disabilities, and even though there is no law requiring the private sector to employ disabled individuals many private companies have taken proactive
measure to do so.
However, the 2007 report by the World Bank surrounding People with disabilities in India found that
the employment rate of disabled people had actually fallen from 42.7% in 1991 to 37.6% in 2002.
There is now a wide gap between the employment rate of those with a disability and those without.
With a population of around 5-6 % disabled individuals it is clear that much more needs to be done to
combat this employment gap, starting from the bottom up.
Report
Raksha is a charity-funded school for students, 4-24 year-old, providing education and development
needs for people with activity and mental limitations. Although reasonable government and private
initiatives exist to support employment of people with disabilities in India, the unemployment rate in
the group is rising.
In light of the findings above and following a request from our partner school we began to deliver interactive classes aimed at developing abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable the students to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life.
The classes are based on a comprehensive curriculum provided by Raksha and developed by GVI.
The curriculum seeks to engage and empower students in developing their; strengths in social skills,
communication, body language, self-confidence, CV building, interview technique and finally being
successful in the workplace.
Each unit is designed to take around 3-5 one-hour sessions, which are delivered by a team of volunteers working together with native speaking staff members from Raksha. This is fantastic for two reasons as it helps to bridge any language barriers while engaging the staff members and social workers
in a new style of teaching.
In September the initial team began with a unit of lessons which focused on the skills needed to be
confident in travelling independently to a restaurant or cafe, ordering the correct food items, paying
successfully and getting the correct change. Over two weeks the team worked on building up the pu-


pils understanding and usage of Golden Words like Please and Thank you, using Menus to order
food, making complaints and confidence with money management.
While initially some of the 8 pupils seamed relatively confident with the tasks at hand it quickly became clear that accuracy, confidence in new situations and independence was lacking. Over the
course of the unit the pupils built their understanding and completed the course by going, with us, to a
local ice-cream parlor to test their skills.
The feedback that GVI had from the staff team at Raksha has been overwhelmingly positive regarding
the performance of specific pupils and our team as a whole. Rex Mohan, a social worker for Raksha
who has worked closely with the volunteers said:
The level of the pupils improving hugely, I honestly dont have the right words to describe the changes Ive seen in the pupils. The students respond so well and engage in the program really well.
I never expected to see this kind of thing from Vishal, its amazing work that GVI are doing in Life
Skills.
In addition to the pupils enjoyment and high engagement levels, what is important is that these classes help them to feel more prepared and confident for their daily lives, leading them where possible to
happy roles in secure employment.