A model resource centre that will address the needs of differently abled children began here at the Coimbatore Corporation special school for hearing impaired children in R.S. Puram.
A release from the district administration says that the Sarva Siksha Abiyan (education for all), Coimbatore Round Table 31, and Coimbatore Ladies Circle 16, were the forces that made the centre a reality by spending Rs. 13 lakh.
The centre will help differently abled children in all the SSA block resource centres get holistic development. It has got a Braille book centre, medical equipment to promote movement among children with locomotor disability, speech therapy centre for children with speech and hearing impairment, library, counselling centre for parents and much more.
It will function on all working days from 9.30 a.m. to 4 p.m. It will have special educators and physiotherapists training the students.
The release says that the district administration has distributed national disabled identity cards to 37,507 people. For those who are yet to get the cards, it will provide the same during the conduct of Assembly constituency-wise camps.
Under the Chief Minister’s direction the district administration has been providing Rs. 1,000 a month to 2,641 people with mental retardation. But there are 6,927 people with mental retardation. To cover the remaining 4,286, the administration has been taking special efforts, says the release. The efforts include special camps in the following places – Pollachi (June 18), Thondamuthur (June 20), Narasimhanaickenpalayam (June 25), Valparai (June 26) and Mettupalayam (June 27).
District Collector M. Karunagaran inaugurated the centre in the presence of Mayor S.M. Velusamy.
