Sonalee Shyamsunder, a political science postgraduate, and human rights diploma used to work as a reporter, before a heart-wrenching incident she witnessed changed her life and drove her to set up a foundation for kids with special needs called ‘Urmi foundation.’ She was working as a reporter on a project where she had to visit one of the slums in Mumbai. There she saw a little girl with hands tied in a murky house. This girl was trying to free herself and there was no one to attend. Though she was shocked, she went away. But, soon was back as she could not resist to find out more. She came back to see that the child was eating her own excreta. This girl had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). She then spoke to her parents and came to know that they were unable to manage the child as she used to run around, was always hungry and they tied her because they were scared that she would hurt herself. But, that incident shook her from within and this is when she decided to quit her job and work towards the upliftment of kids with special needs. She was 35 when she started the Urmi foundation for the kids with disabilities. As per Sonalee, parents living in slums are not aware of mental health conditions in kids and due to lack of awareness around the same, they often treat their kids differently like locking them out of fear or frustration. They’re not even aware that teaching them life skills can be of great help to these kids.
Though she was having a job that paid her well, the incident led her to take a journey within and work around social challenges. As per Sonalee it was never a one day job to start a social foundation and that she had been a witness of many instances that kept fueling her thoughts of starting such an enterprise. As a student, she already had spent over three years volunteering at the Baba Amte Ashram in Mumbai. Besides, she also worked with children living in red light areas of Mumbai through the organization Prerna. All these experiences coupled together made her realize that she needs to do something substantial for children.
Through the Urmi foundation, Sonalee and her team want to create an environment that is adaptive and inclusive for children of special needs and help them grow academically. Her way is to make things easy for these kids. For example, they found that kids with speech disabilities were not able to express their problems to the doctor easily. So, the created digital emojis for them, that include body parts and select expressions. They even provided these signs to doctors of government hospitals so that the kids could communicate with the doctors about their pain easily. Well, this is just the beginning for Sonalee as she plans to open a special education school in the red light area for kids here, first of its kind, as she thinks these kids compared to others are more prone to physical mental or sexual abuse. And to turn this dream into reality she is working with other people and trying to get like-minded ones on board as well.
*Sourced from Internet
