Centre for Community Initiative

The Malsawm Initiative (A school for Children with Special Needs) a project by Centre for Community Initiative is a Centre-based unit under Malsawm Ab Read moreility Resource Centre (MARC). The first of its kind school in the district, working towards education for special needs children. The school has up to Class VI standard and increases every year. More than 100 students could join our regular day school where students are placed according to their abilities in the Play Group, Pre-Academic group, Class I – Class VI and Pre-Vocational Group. The Malsawm Initiative School (TMI) currently accommodates 250 students with 18 staff. Home based care services were provided to more than 50 PwDs which limit their movement outside. In the school, Children with disabilities between 0-8 years are provided appropriate services according to their needs in the Early Intervention Unit. Our issue is not being able to provide physical space for all the Children with disabilities between 0-8 years. The school is not even adequate to cater to the needs of the current set of beneficiaries, and therefore it is impossible to admit new beneficiaries despite wanting to enrol as many children as we can. We have been interchangeably using different rooms for class, therapy, vocational training, early intervention due to constraints and small sizes of the rooms. We also aim to provide informal and formal education along with different services and for that we need support material assistance for a proper inclusive education and development. We have made materials through scraps which don't last long and are not that effective. Lack of access to opportunities, including educational opportunities, play a vital role in limiting the development of children with seeing disability and eventually act as a major barrier to their participation in socio- economic process. However, given the ever-increasing number of children each year and considering the fact that the present school lacks space to accommodate them, Centre for Community Initiative (CCI) is unable to take all the children under the TMI school. And as we are a grassroot organization supported with empathy by the community in the area, we are not in a position to tackle the problem by ourselves as people mainly here are farming with basic income. So, we are in need of assistance for awareness programs and for constructing a permanent and spacious unit for Early Intervention of toddlers with support materials to enhance the overall development of children with special needs. Beliefs We believe that each individuals, communities, institutions and government contribute in their own way to making the world a better place to live in. Vision Our vision is a healthy and just society with equal opportunities for all. Mission Our mission is to build and strengthen society for health care, education and socio-economic development through community initiatives and participation with a special focus on persons with disabilities. Recognition Over the years, CCI has gained various recognitions and appreciation in Churachandpur District. The organization strives towards gaining and attaining more goals in the future.

Our Vision
To create a healthy and just society with equal opportunities for all.

Our Mission
To build and strengthen society for health care, education and socio- economic development through community initiatives and participation.

Our Beliefs
We believe that each individual, communities, institutions and government contribute in their own way to making the world a better place to live in.

The students of TMI have slowly learned to settle in and have become easier to discipline. They now have understood the importance of punctuality, of standing in line during morning and evening assembly, and greeting their teachers, to state the most basic improvements. Their motor skills have also developed so well and most of the students can now open their own lunch box, hold the spoon and eat by themselves. Most of our students who were upgraded from Early Intervention are now able to recognize some alphabets, and identify some colors and numbers. This is a big achievement for a small grassroot organisation like ours.

To be more specific, we would like to highlight some tangible achievements over the years.
Seigunlal, 6 years old boy from Churachandpur was born with spastic cerebral palsy which makes it difficult to voluntarily control his neck. Thi hinders him from performing daily normal activities. However, with the support of the services provided at our Physiotherapy centre, he could freely control his neck. All thanks to our therapist who worked tirelessly for this tangible outcome.
Another inspiring story is yet of another student by the name Chiinkhawlching who has hearing impairment that caused her to lose speech and language development. With the sign language classes provided in our institution, Ching has overcome all odds, excelled in sign language and now is a teacher who is fondly known as “ Silent Instructor” inspiring thousands of people who have heard of her story.