Urmi Foundation

Supported by: Wipro Cares

About the organization

URMI’s mission is centered on the integration and inclusion of the population with developmental disabilities into mainstream society through education, therapy, capacity building, and policy support by strengthening governmental institutions aiming at sustainable and strategic change.

To this end, the organization aims to design and implement low-cost, effective models of social institutions that are adaptable. The organization strives to make disability interventions available at the grassroots level. 

Location and area of intervention

The organization works 12 Bombay Municipal Corporation (BMC) special schools, namely those located at Sion, Koliwada, Parel, Mulund, Dadar, Bhandup, Chembur, Govandi, Vile Parle, Ghatkopar, Santacruz, and Worli. All the schools are located near slums and enrolments are done by URMI regularly. Beneficiaries invariably fall below the poverty line. URMI strives to uplift the quality of BMC’s special education department with easy-to-adopt educational models that can fill in gaps in disability intervention. Such models are validated by experts. 

Learning

This year has entailed learning along the following lines:

• The teaching-learning modules needed frequent research.
• The team geared to address issues relating to autism needed training, as this is a prominent issue in the schools.
• Devoted efforts for DIET bring visible and fast change. 

Challenges 

• Finding capable teachers who are willing to work at the grassroots level
• Non-duration TLM

Plan of action

The plan of action will be focussed on:

• Evolving focused fundraising strategies for better project resources 
• Fine-tuning project Udaan and school grading tool for BMC special schools
• Creating free resources via the resource room online portal 
• Expanding the operations of URMI at the Zila Parishad level 

In addition, in FY 2023-24, the organization proposes to undertake greater community outreach. This will involve helping community residents to acquire an Adhaar card, UDID card, and PAN card. During this period, URMI will also improve referral services for mothers and families. We have launched the project “Udaan” and designed a school grading tool. 

URMI will hand over its model to the two BMC special schools, and mentor them from time to time. This year also we will focus on generalization-based assessment and learning. URMI and BMC schools will focus on an annual nutrition plan and an interactive board will be designed accordingly. Workshop with BMC and URMI teachers will be carried out with the help of resource person Ashish Nagpurkar, for combined team building.

URMI has launched a new concept called “Disability Inclusion Hub.” A devoted space and online link will be updated for sharing information about disability related interventions. 

URMI researched the following topics and wrote best practices notes on the same: 

• Need to define praxis problem assessment parameters 
• Structure design of therapy rooms in schools with the help of an architect 
• Workshop on behaviour modification practice focusing on therapy and autism 

URMI undertook workshops on: 

• Therapy material usage in academics 
• Workshops in occupational therapy: perceptual function, kinaesthetic perception, and body image and schema (practice, difference, and similarities) in therapy and academic contexts 
• Children’s neuromuscular development, correlation between therapy objectives and activities, defining goals

URMI has devoted time to capacity building, especially project capacity building, and workshops for teams.