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Submitted by PatientsEngage on 12 August 2017

Mitr is a vibrant community centre in Chennai for parents who have children with special needs, where you can bond with like-minded families, sit back and relax at the Special Needs Mitr Cafe, or engage in an exciting range of vocational classes and activities held for both parents and kids.

Parents of children with special needs may feel isolated and disheartened coping with medical, financial, educational and emotional issues. Mitr is a centre in Chennai for serving parents of children who are differently abled, creating an environment for making friends and providing information and emotional support to families. It is a haven for parents as well as their children.

Mitr, started in October 2015, is the brainchild of Vimal Balachander, who is a special needs parent herself. She decided to start Mitr when she realized the need for a space for special needs families to interact.

“A few years before Mitr was born, we had a small, informal group conducting just yoga program for special needs families,” informs Mr. Gopinath Ramakrishnan, one of the founding members, tracing the growth and journey of Mitr. “We found that, in addition to the yoga practice itself, the coming together of special needs families in a relaxed environment had a very positive impact on both the children and the parents. We also found that there were many parents of special needs children who were looking for such peer interaction and socializing opportunities. This eventually led to us forming a parent support group for special needs families called SCAN in mid-2015. SCAN stands for Special Child Assistance Network. Our group has children with various special needs – Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cerebral Palsy, Down’s Syndrome, Intellectual Disability, Dyslexia, ADHD, etc.”

Mitr - a space

Mitr has become the physical manifestation of SCAN. The intent is to provide a space, a platform to enable parents to exchange information and experiences – regarding therapies, schools, diets, and so on – as well as provide opportunities for social interaction. There are workshops, parent meets, and various activities that are therapeutic for special needs children. There is Art Therapy, Pottery & Clay Modelling, Drums Class and Yoga classes, on a regular basis.

All special occasions like Christmas, New Year, Children’s Day, and so on are celebrated enthusiastically at Mitr. And every World Autism Day, they have an awareness program and commemorative event. 

A Cafe for Life Skills

An interesting initiative of the organization is their Special Needs Mitr Café that opens on Sunday evenings. The Café was started to teach some life skills to the children. There have been many sessions on simple everyday skills like understanding how to handle money, making a shopping list and going to a shop, making a purchase at the store, giving a large denomination note and getting change, etc. At the Café, the kids help prepare and serve the food, prepare the bill, and collect the money.

“A lot of special needs kids like to help in everyday tasks around the home. It may be that the regularity of the routine gives them a sense of reassurance and continuity, or just that they see their mothers doing something and want to imitate them. Activities like cutting vegetables appeal to many of them. It also becomes an exercise to develop fine motor skills, and also perhaps fulfills some sensory needs. While it is mostly the moms who plan and prepare the menu, some of the children are actively involved in the decision process, as well as in the preparation,” says Mr. Ramakrishnan.

There is one child, Aarya, who loves to mix bhelpuri! His mother says it’s not just the final product – he also helps prepare all the ingredients at home. Another boy, Madhav, decides which item they will bring for the café and helps to make it. He and his mom prepare pizza from scratch, right from baking the pizza base to making the tomato sauce! Another child, Anirudh, has a yen for making sweet lime juice – takes great pleasure in squeezing the sweet lime! Mitr Café has on its menu mostly stuff that kids enjoy! So there are items like pizza, sandwiches, bhelpuri, pani puri, vada, bajji, cutlets, French fries, brownies, chocolate cake, lemon juice.

More recently, a vocational unit called Tarang has started operating at Mitr. This is a full-time vocational unit for young adults. It is an initiative by parents of the differently-abled to improve their self-esteem and confidence, create a platform for self-employment, and progress on the path to independent living in the years to come. The young adults – called interns – are engaged in a wide range of activities – from cutting vegetables, preparing atta and various food mixes, to weaving mats and towels, to making paper and jute bags. They can also make Thamboolam Bags, Navarathri gifts, gift envelopes and decorative diyas, and many more craft items. Recreational programs like Yoga, Zumba and Physical Education / Sports are also part of the daily activities.

Safe and Relaxing

The Café hosts fun activities like traditional Indian games, music performances and story-telling sessions, etc. For many parents Mitr becomes a place where they feel the children are safe and comfortable. When the parents are relaxed, the children sense it and relax too!

Mitr has a fairly regular program called Gyaan Budhwaar in which SCAN parents share their expertise and experience on any aspect of bringing up and nurturing special needs children. As part of this, they have had sessions by parents on topics ranging from Bach Flower remedies to Reading Techniques to Home Schooling. “We have also had workshops by professionals, on topics such as Sujok Accupressure and Reiki Therapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Behaviour Management and Financial Planning for Special Needs,” says Mr. Ramakrishnan. “We are constantly looking for workshops that our parent group would be interested in. We even had a dental check-up camp recently, as many special needs kids suffer from dental issues.” Mitr is now a registered Trust. Vimal, her husband Bala and I are the Trustees.

“The main idea of Mitr is to empower moms to find solutions for themselves and their kids through sharing and friendship. We have been careful to avoid anything akin to 'therapy' at Mitr and the classes for kids are all of a relaxed sort- drums, art and pottery. Mitr is used by a group of young special adults on Saturdays as a place to meet their neurotypical peer and have jam music sessions,” informs Vimal.

“More and more families have been coming to Mitr enjoying the pleasant beach- side location, the cosy refurbished container, the open kitchen and the green overhead cover,” she concludes.