Article

Finding inclusion and meaning

With the intervention of Perkins India’s IDI Team, Lavi is no longer left at home.

Lavi engaged in colouring activity with her teacher Arti

Today, you might find 6-year-old Lavi cheerfully interacting with her teacher and other children at the Community Intervention Centre in the Gosaiganj block of Lucknow district. With her friends at the Center, she engages in fun activities. For instance, she enjoys counting colorful flowers, one of her favorite things, and placing them in clay pots while she learns about colors and numbers. Lavi’s parents report that she loves to learn new things when she goes to the Center every week. 

This experience of Lavi is a drastic change from where you would have found her one year ago. Lavi’s mother used to worry when members from their family and community would take her younger brother outside to play, but leave Lavi behind at home. With Lavi’s combined vision impairment and intellectual disability, she has a short attention span and gets easily distracted; people did not know how to engage with her. In her small village, Lavi did not have access to any kind of education that would accommodate her needs. Lavi is naturally active and cheerful so being excluded from these opportunities to play and learn was very difficult for her mother to accept. 

Lavi’s learning experience today is possible thanks to the mediation of Perkins India’s Identification and Intervention (IDI) Team at partner organization, Jayati Bharatam. She was identified by the IDI Team in 2020 after being connected to them via door-to-door screening in her village. 

Lavi putting the flower in the clay pot

This identification and intervention changed Lavi’s world by bringing her a Perkins-trained teacher. With her teacher’s support, Lavi has learned how to sit in one place and engage meaningfully in activities. Where previously she may have thrown objects to the side because she did not understand what they were, she can now use the same with purpose because she has learned their use in a way that is meaningful to her. 

In addition to all of the learning support for Lavi, her family was guided by the IDI Team to obtain an Identity Card and a Disability Certificate. These essential documents enable Lavi and her family to access government benefits that are available for persons with disabilities. 

Lavi’s life changed when she started receiving intervention from the IDI Team. Today, her mother is so proud to see her learning new skills everyday!  

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