This Bengaluru NGO strives for inclusion in its every step

Ashish Anand and Suchismita Das have been close friends for a long time. During their conversations, Anand and Das used to discuss about the dearth of good schools and NGO’s for reaching out to disabled children. Since Das was working in the same field, she knew how things could have been better with more focus on disabled children. That is how the duo decided to start Perseverance, an NGO that empowers disabled children in Bengaluru.

Perseverance was founded in 2016 and they have two centres in Bengaluru- one at Sahakara Nagar another one at HBR Layout. Most of them are children with autism. Perseverance believes that it is high time to begin inclusion in schools and gradually reach out to all sections of the society.

When compared to earlier times, parents have awareness on disabilities. But majority of the people in our society are unaware of disabilities unless their own child or someone from their family has it. We are trying to create awareness in the society. We believe that if given the right guidance, our society can be inclusive. For this, we collaborate with other schools so that our children with disabilities spend time with other children who do not have disabilities. This way, we can strengthen bonds and children will learn to empathize. It is always best when you catch them young!- Ashish Anand, Co-founder, Perseverance.

Recently, children at the centre were taken to a park to interact and spend time with other children who visits this park. Anand says that all of them have a great time sharing their things and playing together!

At this NGO, children are introduced to a regular school set up where they have to spend five hours learning academics. This is a way to prepare a child for mainstream schooling. Children are given speech, behavioural and occupational therapies according to their needs. Recently, they introduced a sports therapy session where children will be introduced to various kinds of sports and activities. They even hired a skilled expert trainer for that. Once this was introduced, Anand and Das found out that they have some talented sportsmen and women in their centre!

Radhika’s nine year old son has been a part of Perseverance for the past few months. She says that her son has improved in multiple ways after being trained at this NGO.

“Earlier, he was not able to communicate certain things, even though he wanted to. Now, communication is much easier for him. His confidence level has also increased a lot! Before I always felt that he was lacking something because he sounded unhappy most of the time. But now, I can proudly say that he is a happy child. He is doing well academically also”, says Radhika, Autism parent.

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