Funded by: William Grant & Sons, World Duty Free Group, WiTR and Delhi Duty Free, Dubai Duty Free, Peter Mohn/M1nd Set (Solar Electricity System), Evan Cornish Foundation (Specialist Teachers), the ACT Foundation, Clarkson Jersey Charitable Trust, Alan and nesta ferguson charitable settlement and other many other generous individuals
Phase 1 Cost £75,200, OPENEd 2012. Phase 2 (Skills Centre) COST £36,000, opened 2015. Phase 3 (Boys Accommodation) COST £42,000, opened 2018
Eighty-five children, aged 6-16, with disabilities ranging from cerebral palsy through to Down’s syndrome, now have a new special school and home: The Janet Sheed Roberts Residential School for Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. Many of the children are being integrated in society for the first time.
Situated in the small village of Basai, some 10km from the town of Ramnagar, the school is in the grounds of a secondary school, built and administered by local NGO, USR Indu Samiti, with whom Lotus Flower Trust partnered to manage the construction of the school and its day-to-day running. All the physically challenged children attend lessons in the adjacent Inter College. Those with mental special needs are taught by specialist teachers at JSR.
What has been extraordinary about this project is how the local people and members of government have supported the school by providing a school bus, a water tank, security wall and a local manufacturer has made all the children track suits.
Skills Centre
The Skills Centre occupies the whole of the top floor of the JSR Residential School. Besides teaching life skills to the children, to ready them for leaving school, the Centre is used by the whole community with village ladies teaching sewing and cooking to girls from both the JSR School and from the secondary school in the same grounds.
The Centre now offers classes in: cutting, tailoring, toy making, screen printing, machine knitting, embroidery, IT, data entry, plumbing, electrical appliance repairs, wiring, mobile phone repairs, bicycle repairs and hairdressing and beautician treatments. Distribution has been found locally for some of the products and the proceeds will be used to support the cost of running the JSR Residential School. The Centre has proven to be a valuable resource for learning and an asset to the community.
BOYS ACCOMMODATION
In the Juvenile Act of 2015, the Indian Government recently decreed that all boys and girls must be accommodated in separate buildings, 200 metres apart. This left us with two choices; either to stop providing sleeping quarters for the boys or the girls, which we absolutely did not want to do, or turn to those that can help us to find the money (£42,000) to build a boys residential home on the other side of the site. Thankfully The ACT Foundation and the Alan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Settlement agreed to help and building work on the new accommodation is now complete.
There are many stories related to this very special project. To find out more, please Contact Us.
