Simran Ahuja By Express News Service BENGALURU: It’s a quiet afternoon, and Neeraj* is busy converting a plain 30m cloth into one with intricate blue patterns. The 17-year-old’s special educator dips a patterned block into paint and places it on the cloth, while he presses down firmly and looks up to smile each time he does. In another corner of the room, 20-year-old Hemalatha* sews a handle onto a cloth bag. Not too far away, four girls are making small newspaper bags, which are later handed over to medical shops to use for packaging. This is a typical day at Nav Prabhuthi Trust, a city-based NGO at Basaveshwaranagar that aims to empower individuals with autism with vocational skills. “The aim is to help these individuals minimise dependence on families and rely on them only for minimal support,” says Usha Reddy, sales and CSR coordinator at the trust. The centre has 24 trainees – 18 boys and six girls – and six special educators who help students with activities such as block printing, tailoring, data entry and jewellery making. All the trainees are aged 18 years or more, and lie on different ends of the spectrum. Prabha Iyer, mother of a 24-year-old, says such centres help them hone their skills and keep them better occupied. “As a mother, I may not know what he is capable of. Special educators have a better idea of their strengths and weaknesses. Some are good with data entry, some are good with stitching,” she adds. Upon joining the organisation, trainees undergo an assessment to gauge their skills, speech and abilities. The students are then grouped and trained accordingly. A look around the different classrooms shows this: In some, instructions are stuck on the wall (for trainees who prefer written instructions to verbal ones), others have pictures students can point to (a car to indicate that they want to go home, snacks to indicate they are hungry, etc). On one wall, a sign reads: ‘All the things will be on the table. Raju* will be quiet seeing things on the office table.’ Reddy explains, “Raju likes things to be neat. He can’t take the sight of a messy table. But this sign is meant to assure him that even if our tables are messy at the moment, they will be cleared when the work is done.” The students are not paid a stipend but Reddy hopes that by next year, and post shifting to a bigger space, they will be able to provide them a monthly remuneration of `2,000. One of their trainees was recently recruited by a company for a data entry job that he can do from home, which pays around `12,000 a month. “We want more of our trainees to get placed. We are part of an initiative called Mission 1,000, where companies and NGOs work together to create job roles for people with disabilities,” says Reddy, adding that at the new centre, trainees will also learn screen painting and hospitality training. Before we leave, Reddy introduces us to the trust’s office assistant, Raghu*, saying, “He’s an individual with intellectual developmental disabilities but he can travel by a bus, visit banks and courier items all by himself. Our aim is to help our trainees become independent as well as financially contributing members.” *Names changed on request

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