24 years ago Amba family was blessed with a girl child named her Pooja and just after 2 years with the boy child Deepak. The family was filled with happiness, but soon the rejoice turned into sorrow and trouble-filled into the atmosphere. When the family came across the fact that both the kids are speech and hearing impaired.
The parents “initially faced a lot of problem in communicating and understanding things, due to lack of communication they were not having the level of understanding and bonding that children and parents usually share.”
Pooja and Deepak not only faced problems in communicating with their parents but also felt ignored by society as well. The kids of the same age were not able to interact well and at times even ended teasing the both of them. However, it happened unintentionally but it did happen which was the basic reason that makes the kids felt ignored. They were not able to play outdoor games due to a lack of friends and other such issues.
But soon parents were enlightened about the ‘Sethi Anand Poddar School’ which was a Government gift for such children. The school has different types of the syllabus from general school. They were taught how to recognize things by touching and lip-reading. To cater to the special needs of these children, specially trained teachers are hired. The school not only provides education to these students but also helps their parents in understanding sign language and also building a good relationship between the parents and kids.
When the parents talked about the school with their children, they got excited and showed very much interested in the idea of being a part of this organization. The kids got the place to learn and explore various things, slowly and gradually the understanding within the family increased. As the kids were now able to express themselves and parents were also learning to understand them.
The initial days of school were fine but later the children started giving false excuses for not attending the school. The reason behind it was the atmosphere of the school. As the schools were lacking basic facilities such as furniture, no clean water for drinking, the students were not given the proper education as they were not taught English, general knowledge, skill development, science, mathematics many others. Because of all this, the interest of the kids started decreasing. The parents tried to find out the reason behind this and started looking forward to the conclusion.
However they did get this benefit of admitting their wards in sethi school because they came to know that the kids can hear with the help of hearing machines. The father immediately left for Delhi to collect the pair of machines for their kids. As they were filled with happiness cause finally now the kids can at least listen to them, a grand step towards building a loving relation was taken by gifting the machine.
After 5 years the parents took the biggest or can be said as the wisest decision of their wards live. By bringing them into the normal environment among the normal people. They admitted their wards to a normal school where the mother works. Though the staff members and the children co-operated well with them. But sometimes there are situations which put these kids in dilemma or in bad phase basically it happens when they tried to convey something and unfortunately, they fail. The boy in such situations burst out in anger and do a various harmful activity which causes harm to himself. The major issue and the problem was “lack of communication”. They were not able to express their feelings properly.
With every passing day, kids started participating in various cultural activities like dancing, theatres and specifically showed interest in art and the boy started building up interest in computers. They qualified for secondary exams with 1st division. After seeing the results the parents were motivated even more. The kids then showed interest in a particular area and asked for the diploma courses. Till now the journey was quite smooth as they were surrounded by the protective shield of their parents. But now the journey will be a bit difficult for them.
On this Deepak expressed “I know driving but my parents never allow me to go by myself and even the government doesn't provide us the license. We tried traveling in public transport the experience was so bad that I don’t even wish to recall it and after that incident, our parents never allowed us for the next time."
Other than conveyance the problem faced in this institute was the teachers speaks too fast which made it even more difficult for us to understand the lessons. Apart from it we never get friends so easily it takes a lot of time to get one so the emotional support that the people of our age get with friends and such other relation we lacked in that as well. But as it was our area of interest so we somehow managed, worked hard, and tried to achieve the goal as soon as we can.”
The next hurdle was a job, the girl tried to join various beauty parlors but failed to join any as she was rejected by the owner's cause of her deformity as they all rejected her by saying you can’t communicate with the customer and the kind of work we are having interaction is the key. She was already insulted, humiliated to an extent that she thought of giving up from everything. But then her parents supported her a lot to get a shop near society where she started her own parlor on a small scale. She did face problems in dealing with the customers but her work and determination were soon appreciated by society and she managed to extent her parlor. She after having experience moved to Delhi for expanding her work.
On the other hand, the boy was too going through all this but he managed to get into the company with the reputed designation. Deepak too showed gratitude towards their loving parents and said they always motivated us. They taught us to have a dream and to form a path to achieve them. Clearing the interview was the toughest part of all but every single time I failed and came back home my parents motivated me and pushed me to appear for the next one. Within a few weeks, one company called me back took a demonstration, and hired me as a designer.
Now we have started guiding the students and helping them in their lives, We inspired them by saying "when there is a Will; there is a way.