Tamahar Trust

Its Core Programmes for Children include early intervention, sensory integration therapy, communication therapy, special education, and assistive technology. These programmes aim to improve functional abilities, social skills, communication, and overall quality of life for children with developmental delays or disabilities.

These programmes provide interventions such as physical therapy, including Yoga and music, speech therapy and occupational therapy which intend to create a supportive environment for children to grow and reach their potential.

Tamahar's recreational activities include park visits, exposure visits, badminton classes, hobby classes, painting, indoor games, music and summer camps. All these activities aim to provide a fun and engaging experience for children with special needs while also helping them develop new skills and abilities. The organisation also offers parent-training programmes to help families learn how to incorporate these therapies into their daily lives.

The Trust also involves itself in advocating and creating awareness of child disability through organising seminars, lectures and get-togethers among the stakeholders of the community. It also takes up training of trainers to cater to children with special needs in an attempt to reach out to more such children and facilitate their care and treatment.

Our family services include couple of programs such as Parent/Caregiver training, Mental health services, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship training Parents/Caregiver Training: Parents are the primary therapists any child can get. It is thus imperative that parents understand the development of their children. In our EI program, it is mandatory for at least one parent/caregiver to be present every day to get hands-on learning of child development. During the sessions, we educate and train the parents/caregivers on the necessary skills that are essential to work with their children at their homes along with carrying out their housekeeping chores. Besides, more importantly we ensure that the caregivers/parents understand their children, as that then becomes a catalyst for Tamahar to have a more effective program. We believe that therapy is not a 2 hour program but a 24 hour/day process and it has to be continued in the home environment rather than a few hours a day. We also conduct theory classes to caregivers to impart the right type of information followed by practical sessions which are carried out on a daily basis. Mental health services: Our Mental health services consist of a support group for Mothers, Support Group for fathers, One on One/Counseling Services for Mothers and families, SSQ/TCQ for families and Awareness/Advocacy programs for parents. We support families to get accurate diagnosis for their children and enroll them in the Government supported programs like the Niramaya scheme, pension scheme, etc. We also conduct UDID programs to ensure all children get a disability card. We have started a partnership to enable families get medicines and investigations for their children at subsidized rates Skill development program: In 2019 we started our skill development program. Most of the mothers coming to Tamahar are unpaid caregivers, either due to the number of duties or lack of education and skill. We decided to address this issue by starting a skill-development program along with entrepreneurship training. This aims to help them to become financially independent & self-reliant and to realize their potential by turning their skills into a vocation. Currently we have classes in embroidery, tailoring,painting, making organic and home made products and spoken English. The plan is to engage these skilled mothers to employ PWDs along with Neuro-typical adults and run their own operations.

Our Human Resource Development program focuses on continued formal education of staff and internal staff training. We strongly believe in continued education for the staff. Every year we conduct various training for staff to improve their skills, to make them efficient in their work. It includes programs like MAITS training for staff, enabling them to attend external workshops, training and seminars. We are currently developing a training course on intervention for children with intellectual impairments based on the Tamahar pedagogy that can be offered to people with a minimum qualification of 10+2. In a world with skewed statistics (1 professional rehabilitation worker : 5000 people), this is our bid to increase the human resource in the sector.

Tamahar has always given priority for increasing our knowledge and sharing it within the sector. As part of the Research and Development Program we continue to conduct research on intervention methodologies that are useful in the LMICs(Low & Middle Income Country) There is a great need to gather statistics and knowledge about the disabilities that exist here, and the work done to alleviate it. This will help us better our interventions and knowledge.

As part of advocacy we have the Parents Movement for Inclusive Development (PMID). This program aims to create awareness about the rights of the people with disabilities and also their families. We also conduct various awareness programs for the parents on topics to increase their knowledge which in turn help increase the awareness of disability in the community

Tamahar is a non-profit organization working in the field of childhood disability (developmental delay due to brain damage), since 2009 we provide services to children from age 0-upwards from all socio-economic backgrounds. We believe in the medium of holistic developmental intervention based on principles of Montessori methodology, RDI, Occupational Therapy, etc, which we carry out through a combination of Early Intervention, Special Education, Auxiliary Therapies, Family Programs (Mental Health Services), and Recreation, etc. Our Motto is 'Looking Beyond Survival’. Our work also aligns with 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outlined by the UN. SDGs relevant to our programs are : Goal 3 : Good Health and Well Being Goal 4 : Quality Education Goal 8 : Decent Work and Economic Growth Goal 10 : Reduced Inequalities Our services for children is mainly carried out through various programs such as Early intervention, Nursery, Functional Academics, Prevocational training and Sheltered Workshop and Auxiliary therapies (Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, Yoga Therapy and Music Therapy) EARLY INTERVENTION Children with brain damage have difficulty developing on par with their neuro-typical peers in all categories of development, e.g. mental, intellectual, physical and emotional. As a result, they need external support and stimulus to develop these skills. This stimulation, or activities/therapies, designed to impart these skills to infants and toddlers (developmental age 0-3 years), are collectively called Early Intervention. This is the core foundation program at Tamahar. This program essentially creates self-awareness in the child; helps build social skills, communication, and improves cognition. This is a scientifically derived program and the assessment of the developmental age/skills of the child is done using the criterion-referenced assessment tool, The Carolina Curriculum. A goal sheet is created for each child depending on the results and a customized activity plan is created to attend to specific needs of the child. Activities are given one-on-one and in groups, conducted at the center, and also in parks and playgrounds NURSERY Our nursery program is a bridge between formal literacy and early intervention. At Tamahar, the curriculum of the Nursery program is spread out for skills to be learned during the developmental period of 3-4 years of age (as per The Carolina Curriculum) like independence in self-help skills, etc. This is a 5- day/week, 5-hours/day program, children continue in this class for however long they might take to progress to the developmental age of 48 months FUNCTIONAL ACADEMICS Children who are developmentally above 4 years of age start with academic training, based on the Montessori method of teaching, where self-experiential learning is given importance. There is equal attention to self-expression through a number of extra-curricular activities. The Tamahar FA program incorporates principles of Art-based Therapy along with other recreational activities like gardening, non-fire cooking, Theatre, Dance, and Fine Arts. Under functional academics, stress is on learning only the essential school subjects (basic academic skills that the child must have to operate in day to day life - Math, Language (English and Oral Kannada), Science) needed for life navigation and focus weighs more on teaching life skills – social skills that focus on training the child on human interactions and appropriate behavior and individual personality development. Focus is also on the child’s ability to be independent. The academic curriculum of the program is set in accordance with the Karnataka state syllabus and the program is split into grades depending upon the child’s proficiency in the syllabus. (LKG, UKG, 1st Grade, etc). PREVOCATIONAL TRAINING AND SHELTER WORKSHOP Tamahar started its Pre-vocational program in June 2016 for adolescents and young adults with mild to moderate Intellectual Impairment, who are not likely to pursue academics by the time they are 15 years old. Pre-vocational training is a program designed for young adults/children with special needs to learn and practice basic skills which make up the foundation of any job/vocational training. These include soft skills, social skills, self-reliance in an unfamiliar environment, travel and finance skills, etc. to enable them to get specific skills for on job training from a specialized vocational unit. This eases the stress on them when they learn new vocational skills and also prepares them for social interactions in an adult world. We believe that such an approach will make inclusion of these special people in society easier as well as making them employable and economically independent. Sheltered workshop was started at Tamahar in June 2016 for those with moderate to severe disability/intellectual impairment (IQ <35) that would make it impossible for them to pursue education, and independent vocational training. Sheltered workshops are facility-based day programs attended by adults with disabilities, as an alternative to working and earning their living in an open-job market. We believe every individual has the capacity and ability to live as independently as possible and can earn if given a proper environment, and opportunity. The program is designed to motivate and empower young adults by introducing a variety of activities, which will give them skill and confidence to work and earn their living. AUXILIARY THERAPIES Tamahar is a strong believer in the power of auxiliary therapies as an aid to the core therapies. Auxiliary therapies like Speech Therapy, Vision Therapy etc. are proven to have a strong positive effect on the complete wellbeing of children with special needs and together, they hasten the child’s recovery. At Tamahar, auxiliary services are open to all children along with education programs and are conducted once or twice every week. Sessions are conducted either individually or in batches. The following auxiliary therapies are provided to the children, first three on need basis and Music and Yoga to all 1. Physiotherapy - Helps children who have mobility issues and corrects tone. Improves Gross-motor function. 2. Speech Therapy - An integral part of rehabilitation when working with children who have difficulty in swallowing, talking, and understanding language due to medical or surgical conditions. 3. Occupational Therapy – While Physiotherapy takes care of the physiological aspect of rehabilitation, Occupational Therapy aims at enabling the child to be independent by teaching Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) and other everyday functions. (Safety, Self-care, Feeding) and Fine-motor skills 4. Music therapy - Is known to improve vocalization, attention, and sitting tolerance in children. It teaches them music appreciation! The idea is not to teach music, but use it as the means to induce development. 5. Yoga – Proven to improve balance, physical strength and concentration. It also improves coordination; children who are hyperactive become relaxed. Remarkable improvement can be seen in listening skills, attention span, and self-regulation.

Tamahar has always given priority for increasing our knowledge and sharing it within the sector. As part of the Research and Development Program we continue to conduct research on intervention methodologies that are useful in the LMICs(Low & Middle Income Country) There is a great need to gather statistics and knowledge about the disabilities that exist here, and the work done to alleviate it. This will help us better our interventions and knowledge.