Recreation, sports and cultural activities constitute an important aspect of the training in the Early Intervention programme. Festivities, fun and frolic combined with structured training have become an integral part at MNC. MNC over the last 15 years has celebrated many Indian festivals annually. Be it Pongal, Krishna Jayanthi, Christmas, Ramzan, we have it all at MNC. The parents and teachers of MNC are actively involved in the planning of the celebrations in which they participate as much as the children.
Painting competitions, inter-school sports competitions are organized for the children. Field trips and picnics are also conducted for the children. Apart from this, MNC also organizes workshops for parents on various aspects of disability, seminars by noted specialists, refresher courses and training courses for teachers and core trainers.
Nutrition Festival 2009 at Madhuram Narayanan Centre For Exceptional Children
By M. Karpaka Niranjana, Special Educator & Nutritionist, MNC
Madhuram Narayanan Centre for Exceptional Children, ever since its inception in 1989, has been in the forefront in providing early intervention services to children with development delays and mental retardation in the age group birth to six years.
While providing early intervention, the need for nutritional food amongst the children was realised. The idea was to inculcate the practice to provide balanced diet and the immediate need for this message to reach all families, particularly those from lower strata of society, those living in poor living conditions and those who are ignorant and illiterate.
Nutritional Festival
It is against this background that "Nutri Fest" was organized at Madhuram Narayanan Centre for Exceptional Children, fondly known as MNC on 17th March, 2009. The festival was planned to create awareness amongst the parents on the nutritious foods that can be easily prepared and adapted in the daily routine. The dishes were prepared by the parents of special children highlighting the consistency of food texture for each age group i.e. birth to two years, 2yreas - 4 years and 4 years- 6years and displaying it accordingly.
The festival highlighted the nutritional aspects, creativity of presentation, appearance, texture of new food varieties prepared by parents. The "MELA" motivated the children, parents and the special educators to work with enthusiasm and this made the festival a great success.
There was keen competition amongst the parent groups to come out with best efforts. The groups were divided into 3, keeping in mind to bring out the food practice in a child's daily life i.e. Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner preparations respectively. Three judges adjudicating in the competition based their evaluation on displaying of charts and models and presentation of food items. The other important aspects considered were how the dish preparation can be made easy, the usage of easily available ingredients, taste and time required for cooking.
The festival has given an insight for the parents of children with special needs to prepare different kinds of food with easily available ingredients and making them aware of the different variety of food that can be incorporated into the daily routine with ease and according to the child's specific nutritional needs. In this way, the children with special needs are motivated to have a pleasant and enjoyable nutritious rich meal.
Project Sankarshana: A scheme to get back into the fold of early intervention children who have dropped out, with teams of staff visiting the families, ascertaining and analysing the reasons for their dropping out and finding alternative ways of providing early intervention to them.
