Since its inception, the school has been rendering service on a voluntary basis, providing FREE specialized individual education programs, based on either the Madras Developmental Programming System and /or the Basic MR Scale, sustained & durable behavioral management therapy; physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy and general medical care; family bound contact programs and family assistance training programs;
in-house family counseling; referral services, e.g. to medical specialists, therapists, other voluntary community organizations working in the field, etc. So far, approximately 180 children have benefited from our school by availing our services. Notably however, it is not only special children who are included in our target group. Our school is also committed to assisting the parents of mentally retarded children. Through training and counseling sessions conducted by our special educators, we aim to help parents to better understand the needs of their children and thereby, to achieve more effective interventions. In this way, our children's emotional welfare will be further improved, as will their ability to learn, to interact with others and, more importantly, to enjoy their lives.
Residential Home and School
During the ten
years that the Annai Special School has been operating, we
have perceived a great -and unmet- need in the community not
only for free educational services for mentally retarded
children, but also for full-time residential care facilities
for special children. In response to this problem,
Karunaii Trust has committed itself to raising funds in
order to construct and maintain a purpose-built school for
special children, plus a residential home to provide full-time
care to students. The master plan of Karunaii Trust proposes
to have five blocks of buildings which include classrooms, a
residential block, rooms for physiotherapy and occupational
therapy, a health clinic, accommodation for residential staff,
guest rooms and rooms to conduct training programmes for
special educators.
The area
selected for the building is about two thousand and five
square feet, this will be as big as the ground floor. The
first floor will be one thousand four hundred forty-two square
feet. The construction costs for the building are
estimated to be around Rs. 21,00,000.
The building of the school will be
possible by the Patronage of Sri. Saidhai S. Duraiswamy, a
former member of Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, who donated
2.74 acres of land near Thiruthani; Thiruvellore District of
Tamil Nadu. The Trust is grateful to him.