Sponsor lifeskills training to the differently abled by Diya Foundation (DIYA)

Total number of beneficiaries impacted: 45 in Bangalore

Beneficiaries enrolled in 2022-23 was 12. Some of the opportunities that opened up were Art exhibitions where our students showcased their artwork. Other activities conducted included Life Skills Training; Short term courses like cooking, digitization, sex education, math and money management.

Jashwanth is a person with an Intellectual disability as it was a new environment when he joined Diya Foundation. He found it difficult to adjust and it took him a few months to accept the trainer and the trainees. We conducted a Get to know meeting with him along with his parents and family members and close friends to understand how to work best with him, areas of improvement, and trying new skills. He was unfamiliar with ironing clothes, tying a shoelace, art, and basic cooking skills, he has now learned different cutting techniques, identifying cooking ingredients, and has found a new interest in Mandala Art and makes beautiful artwork.

This quarter the trainers had planned for following activities like Blockprinting, crafts for birthday gifts such as greeting cards, pen stand & paper pens, Gond art, watching videos of moral stories, word games and Memory games were conducted. All were happy and enjoyed these sessions. Some of the art works created by trainees are used for gifts to their family members, friends, trainers or college internship students for various occasions. One of our trainees, Hema, is very interested in pencil sketches, she watches videos/pictures and works on her art. She frequently sends her sketches to the class group to get reviews. She is very interested in art & craft activities and is the first one to work and complete her tasks in the group.

The trainees enjoyed all three activities thoroughly. They always have a change in their regular schedule to keep them going with the training program.

The activities were well thought of and incorporated for the development of various skills, stay healthy and fit, practice hygiene and develop healthy habits and a lifestyle

. Gardening As part of healthy hobby skills students have been given training on gardening skills. The trainees are encouraged to follow the gardener’s instructions to water the plants, weed the plants, clean the garden premises and potting new plants.

Not much challenges. In the upcoming quarter, trainees will be introduced to various board games.

Dinesh Dinesh, 24 year old, has shown tremendous changes in daily living skills and can now identify his wardrobe necessities. He buys clothes within the budget based on quality and price and preferences. He likes cooking and has begun to take initiative to go to the market to purchase ingredients and assist in cooking preparation. Dinesh takes care of his friends, coming across anyone sad he shows concern about them, he also enjoys when everyone is happy. He relates closely with family members and has learnt to solve issues by discussing with friends, family etc. Dinesh with Sol's arc training has identified skills that need to be improved for his employment. He is building on those skills, he has also learnt to problem solve in completing tasks. It's been a good journey for him to come this far. Now Dinesh is being prepared to take a short internship at Amazon warehouse and very soon he’s hoping to be employed and support his family.

Daily living skills sessions are planned and assessments are done through the LCE program. Before and after each quarter, the trainers conduct a pre and post-assessment to gauge performance achievement and plan goals for the next quarter. This quarter, major focus was given to the following topics:

Buying, preparing, and consuming food: the trainees are learning to prepare simple breakfast recipes and full meals, while learning measurements, the nutritional value of food, and how to prepare balanced meals. Most of the trainees are able to work independently in the kitchen, but some still need constant monitoring and verbal instructions from their mothers. Apart from this, the trainees understood their family responsibilities and the importance of active participation in any family work, sharing with them and spending time with them.

Managing Personal Finance: In this, trainees are on different levels, like identifying values, making transactions within 100 rupees, developing the ability to calculate per meal budget, and daily expense budget. Trainees are getting exposure to money management and its importance. This will continue in the next quarter too.

Through fun activities, coloring sheets, and videos, trainees are learning about road safety and traffic signals and also appropriate road behaviors.

Demonstrating Relationship Responsibilities: trainees are now able to relate with family members and identify their sense of belonging to their home, developing good bonding with their siblings and sharing responsibilities. Due to virtual training, family support has increased tremendously in training because of the active participation of parents and siblings, which has had a positive impact on the trainees' relationship skills.

Goal-wise, beneficiaries' impact

1. Buying, preparing, and consuming food for 29 trainees
2. Managing personal finances—11 trainees
3. Traffic signals: 9 trainees
4. Demonstrating relationship responsibilities to 14 trainees

During this quarter, trainees regularly attended sessions, but some trainees have faced challenges in affording training materials such as grocery items for cooking, hobby kits like coloring materials, and a few simple games. For a few trainees like this, Diya provides a monthly grocery kit and a personal grooming kit in which they are able to attend sessions and practice their cooking, budgeting skills, and building the ability to set a daily routine in their lifestyle with minimum family support and also provide support to their families with a few basic cooking items. Apart from this, a few trainees were provided with mobiles, laptops, and data packs for attending sessions. Sometimes, parents were struggling to manage their child’s behavior issues. So this rehab psychologist conducted family therapeutic sessions to address these issues and support them with activity-based problem-solving solutions.

The upcoming quarterly goals Life skills sessions: becoming responsible citizens Understanding the basics of rights and preventive mechanisms, understanding community and transportation, different types of cooking skills, time management, developing productive leisure activities, personal budgeting and the importance of relationships. We are planning to conduct sexuality education classes to make students aware of themselves and develop the courage to speak about the issues they face, with related healthy thoughts. Art Therapy: Improves students' ability to express themselves. With the help of therapeutic intervention, parents' interactive sessions with children and other family members are improved. celebration and birthday surprises.

Mohan has been employed with Diya Innovation since October 20, 2021, a corporate gifting company. Mohan is a gentleman, well-dressed and soft-spoken person, and is independent in traveling; he travels alone on a BMTC bus to get to work. Mohan is a responsible member of his family. He supports his mother and visits her sister quite often, and spends time with his nephew. Mohan can't read or write. And he only understands Kannada. Mohan is good at hands-on work like making paper products, making candles, and other wood-finishing products. He is a good support in his production unit and enjoys working with his team.

Daily Living skills:Daily living skills sessions are planned and assessments are done through the LCE program. Before and after each quarter the trainers conduct a pre and post-assessment to gauge performance achievement and plan goals for the next quarter. This quarter major focus was given to the following topics:Buying, preparing and consuming food: the trainees are learning to prepare simple breakfast recipes and full meals, learning measurements, nutrients value of food, balanced meals. The majority of the trainees can work independently in the kitchen, but some still need constant monitoring and verbal instructions from their mothers. Apart from this, the trainees have understood their family responsibilities and the importance of active participation in any family work, sharing with them and spending time with them. Managing Personal Finance: In this, trainees are on different levels like identifying values, making transactions within 100 rupees, developing the ability to calculate per meal budget, daily expense budget. Trainees are getting exposure to money management and its importance. This will continue in the next quarter too.Traffic signals: Through fun activities, colouring sheets, videos trainees are learning about road safety and traffic signals and also appropriate road behaviours. Demonstrating Relationship Responsibilities: trainees are now able to relate with family members and identify their sense of belonging to their home, developing good bonding with their siblings and sharing responsibilities. Due to virtual training, family support has increased tremendously in training because of which there is the active participation of parents/siblings, which has created a good impact on the trainees' relationship skills. Utilizing Recreational Facilities and Engaging in Leisure: Every week, trainees have creative fun sessions to teach them how to utilize their leisure time meaningfully and develop good hobby skills, like good art, word games, reading & listening to moral stories etc.Caring for Personal Needs: Sessions are conducted to identify symptoms of sickness and quick home remedies.

Goals for upcoming quarter- Introducing Art Therapy.

Dinesh an enthusiastic learner and happy person. He enjoys talking to his friends and doing computer-related work. Dinesh has improved in daily living skills, he's able to do basic household chores, ironing and cooking simple breakfast recipes. Apart from this he's also regularly attending Personal social skills & Job Readiness. Dinesh is also learning basic computers and Diya has given him a laptop to practice. Dinesh aims to work in computer-related work.

Training Updates:

Diya Foundation’s online training program is proving to be effective. Most trainees are showing significant improvement on the achievement of their goals and are enjoying their sessions as well. They had a brief vacation in the month of October, but Trainers ensured continuity of activities by giving parents a schedule to follow with their wards on a daily basis. Credit is due to the Parents of our Trainees whose unstinting support has ensured the success of our classes.

Daily Living Skills:
Our Trainers had well laid out goals for each of their Trainees in various areas of Daily Living Skills and Employability skills. These included:
● Money Skills – Identifying money at the basic level to using it for small purchases at the higher level
● Caring for Personal needs – Hygiene and grooming, clean habits required to keep safe from the coronavirus, learning simple stitches to mend and sew clothing, make their own bed
● Household Management – Understand tools and equipments used in interior and exterior cleaning of the home, operate electrical gadgets such as a washing machine, a mixie, maintain spaces by using the right techniques in dust and wet mopping
● Food preparation– Understand a balanced meal, cooking techniques, identify ingredients, cook a simple breakfast (poha, upma), fireless cooking (sandwiches, salads)
● Leisure Skills – Play a game of carrom, grow a plant, water the garden, watch a movie, listen to music, sing and dance, art and craft.

Personal Social Skills

Personal social skill refers to life skill and psychosocial competence such as self-determination, problem solving, empathy, interpersonal relationships and communication skills etc. A combination of various psychotherapies is used as per the need of trainees. The session is conducted once in a week for an hour individually or in group. The sessions are found very effective in enhancing communication skills, expressive language skill, confidence, self -esteem, socialization and so on.

“When everyone else says you can’t, determination says,”YES YOU CAN.”

Diya foundation aims at making the trainees independent and be actively contributing by being a responsible member in their family, during the last quarter the trainees were given session on managing their personal finance, doing their household chores with minimum support, understanding physical well-being, personal safety. Alomg with this the trainees have also had individual and group sessions with Rehabilitation psychologist, to improve their relationships with their family members and also understand the importance of establishing relationships with one another. Apart from this seven trainees have undergone employability trainings, out of which four trainees have been placed in service sectors. This year was successful year for Diya, as trainees have excelled in their learning’s.

Program Update

At Diya Foundation students are taught to be independent to large extents. The students are put into employability skill training in areas of their interest and liking. Skills sets such as Paper Mache, Block Printing, Chocolate Making, Housekeeping, Office Attendance, Hospitality etc., Along side of training the students are also taught the importance saving money, punctuality at work if not followed will give them a loss of pay, self grooming etc,. Once the student successfully completes his / her training, they are are placed for employment.

CONGRATULATIONS!! to our batch of 2019 graduates on successfully completing the course on Multimedia. This is an eighteen month program through AIMS Media. The batch had students with down syndrome, autistic and cerebral palsy but their physical challenges didn't stop them from achieving their goal with vigor, eagerness and interest. These students sat through the program learning skills like photo editing, creating, posters, calendars, videos etc.

Story from the field

Shafiq was born on 18-Oct-1995 is diagnosed as a person with cerebral palsy and limitations in academic functioning. In the beginning be lacked self confidence within himself and hesitated at everything he did or was asked to do. He felt that because of his incapacity and disability he could not succeed in doing what was asked of him. At Diya, he was taught how to follow instructions, to listen and to be consistent at the task given, which he did slowly pick-up.
He loves to feel needed and now is a big support during our Diwali production. As part of the training at Diya he has been exposed to internship training and work exposure at The Chancery and SHELL. These exposures have helped him to understand the world of work, the expectations of Employers and the quality of work expected of him. His family too have understood the importance of their support to make Shafiq getting a placement, a success.

During the year he went for an interview to Mitti Café and was successfully offered a job with meals and accommodation.