What, HOW, WHERE, WHY
— What we do:
Make a difference in the lives of thousands of Children with Developmental Delays and Disabilities to reach their full potential by scaling the impact of our high fidelity, high quality and cost effective Enabling Inclusion® Solution through NGOs, Government and Corporate participation.
Amar Seva’s Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Early Intervention and Rehabilitation for Children with Disabilities has been established to scale the impact of Amar Seva’s innovations through partnerships to provide and support child development and rehab solutions to thousands of children, families and communities globally. The main divisions of the CoE are technology, capacity building, research, partnership development and support services.
We provide training, support, app licensing and knowledge sharing services to other NGOs and governments throughout India and globally.
— How we do:
We support NGOs, Governments and Rehab Service Providers
We support children, families and communities
— Where we do:
We directly implement in 5 districts in rural Tamil Nadu (Tenkasi, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Madurai and Namakkal), India.
In 2014, we started with 5 Blocks (Geographical Area, each block population ~ 100,000) in Tenkasi District and reached 351 children and their families. By 2020, we have expanded to 34 Blocks in 3 districts (Tenkasi, Tuticoirn and Tirunelveli) and will reach > 3500 children.
— Why we do:
According to UNICEF’s Child Disability Report (2021), there are nearly 240 million children with disabilities in the world. Children with disabilities are 34% more likely to be stunted, 25% more likely to be wasted, 24% less likely to receive early stimulation and responsive care, 25% less likely to attend early childhood education, 16% less likely to read or be read to at home, 42% less likely to have foundational reading and numeracy skills, 49% more likely to have never attended school, 47% more likely to be out of primary school, 33% more likely to be out of lower-secondary school, 27% more likely to be out of upper-secondary school, 32% more likely to experience severe corporal punishment, 41% more likely to feel discriminated against, 51% more likely to feel unhappy and 20% less likely to have expectations of a better life.
Based on the official census data, there are 7.8 million children with disabilities in India, constituting 1.7% of the child population (Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation, 2016). Other studies estimate that nearly 10% of children in India have some form of developmental, physical or learning delay, making the true burden of childhood disability much higher.
According to the World Health Organization’s Early Childhood Development and Disability discussion paper, “If children with developmental delays or disabilities and their families are not provided with timely and appropriate early intervention, child rehab, support and protection, their difficulties can become more severe—often leading to lifetime consequences, increased poverty, and profound exclusion” (WHO, 2012).
According to UNESCO (2020), 90% of children in India and other LMICs don’t have access to proper child rehab and development services.
Through our EI Program:
- Parents/caregivers are provided with continuous support with the therapy to improve the lives of their children.
- System driven program with prior scheduling, family being the primary decision maker.
- Real time monitoring of the program.
- High fidelity data generated from system for decision making, planning and budgeting.
- Research for impact evaluation and validating outcomes.
- Cost effective delivery for less than $300 USD per child per year compared to $1,500 USD from traditional centre based approach in Tamil Nadu where rehabilitation specialists provide therapy services.
- Paperless and eco-friendly system.
- Evidence based outcomes for advocating state level policy changes.
