ASHIRVAD is thirty one !

The board of trustees of ASHIRVAD met at Vellore for its meeting last Saturday. The SIGNIFICANT  event at this meeting was recollection of its history of the last thirty years.

For Anna and myself, the last thirty years, was a fulfilling journey of learning, growing and trusting. We set out on this mission, persuaded by a series of events in our lives, leaving the Christian Medical College, Vellore in 1982 to move to Chennai to establish a Child Development and Research Centre on 14 November, 1983. It was the first centre for pre-school children with neuro-developmental needs in India, that focussed on diagnostic, therapeutic and interventional services and home based developmental planning for children. Later this initiative was followed by establishing ASHA school for children with special needs at St. Andrews Church, Chennai in 1987, an ASHIRVAD Early Learning Centre at Nagpur in 1991, the Developmental Paediatrics unit at the Christian Medical college, Vellore the first teaching department of its nature in any medical college in India in 1997, a similar facility at Pondicherry Institute of Medical sciences in 2010 and at MOSC Medical College, Kolenchery, in 2012. A post doctoral fellowship in Developmental Paediatrics and a PhD programme got started at CMC Vellore to train professionals in this discipline.

All these initiatives except the one at PIMS continue to provide seminal services for children and parents at a high level of professional efficiency.   

Mr. Mani Ratnam, a well know film producer, recollecting his association with ASHIRVAD while making his film, ANJALI in 1989, a story of child with special needs, in his biography mentioned that, his eyes were opened to the challenges of caring for children with special needs during the several mornings  he spent at the ASHIRVAD Child Development and Research Centre, Chennai to finalise his script and story line. 

All of these and many other experiences happened as a surprise. We did not plan or anticipate such an outcome through a small step of faith we were made to take in 1983. ‘It is God’s doing and marvellous in our sight’.  

The hundreds of children and families whom we welcomed during the thirty years became our tutors and learning resources to make us what we have become! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)