The society covers 5,000 children and youth with disabilities in 600 villages
PROMOTED IN 1981 by Sr. Rosario Lopez in Mendal, East Garo Hills of Meghalaya to provide care and education to physically and mentally challenged children in rural areas, the Bethany Society established North-east India’s first school for visually challenged and hearing impaired children in Tura village in 1988. Since then the society has expanded its activities and reach to cover 5,000 children and youth with disabilities in 600 villages across Meghalaya and in several states of the region.
Currently the society’s rural development and livelihood programmes to aid and enable the development of micro-enterprises, are being implemented in 500 villages in Meghalaya, and its community-based rehabilitation (CBR) programmes have empowered more than 2,000 people with disabilities (PWDs) residing in the Garo, Khasi and Jaintia hills, while its sustainable rural livelihood programme has trained 1,000-plus farmers in contemporary agriculture, food processing and livestock management.
To educate and train people with disabilities the society has constructed four hostels in Tura and Shillong, an orthopaedic rehabilitation centre at Tura, the Jyoti Sroat School and the Roilang Livelihood Academy in Shillong which offers vocational training to 75 PWDs to develop traditional skills in cane and bamboo handicrafts, tailoring, knitting, screen printing, weaving, bakery and food processing. The society also runs a mental health training programme jointly with the Martin Luther Christian University and Hans Foundation under which over 500 rural people have been provided care and counselling.
“From inception, the focus of Bethany Society has been on providing children and people with disabilities opportunities to develop into self-sufficient members of society. Over the past three decades we have been able to provide education and vocational training to enable more than 5,000 people with disabilities — most of them living in remote villages of Meghalaya — to raise themselves up and earn decent livelihoods. More significantly, we have introduced and acquainted state governments and the North-east public about the concept of inclusive education — of the vital need to integrate children and people with disabilities into classrooms and workplaces,” says Carmo Noronha, executive secretary of Bethany Society. An alumnus of Bombay University and NEHU, Noronha taught at several schools including Goethals, Kurseong and St. Columba’s, Delhi before signing up with Bethany Society in 1996.
The society’s showpiece initiative is the Jyoti Sroat School, Shillong, a K-X school affiliated with the Meghalaya State Board of Secondary Education. It’s the state’s first inclusive school promoted in 1993, and currently has an enrolment of 200 students, 80 of whom are children with disabilities, and 26 teachers. Tuition fees are Rs.250 per month, with those who can’t afford to pay exempted.
“The concept of inclusive education was unknown in Meghalaya until Jyoti Sroat began its integration experiment. It was difficult to convince parents that it was possible and beneficial to educate disabled, in particular blind, children alongside sighted students, and that both groups can learn and benefit from each other. Since then we have not only educated parents but also trained our teachers — 30 percent of whom are physically challenged — to teach inclusive classrooms. Today our parents, teachers and students are more than satisfied because learning outcomes have improved and children have absorbed positive behavioural changes,” says Bertha Dhkar, a social work postgrad of Bangalore University who served as principal of Jyoti Sroat for 13 years and is currently co-ordinator Mainstreaming Education Unit of the Bethany Society. Dhkar, who lost her eyesight to retinitis pigmentosa, is inventor of the Braille code in Khasi, a major tribal language of the state. Last year, she was awarded the Padma Shri for her signal contribution to the cause of inclusive education.