The LiS program carries story books to schools with the vision of providing an open access to books to children who may otherwise not have access to print apart from their academic books. The Cipla Foundation have been a sterling supporter of our vision and their support has grown from four schools in 2016 to ten schools in 2018 ! It was a suggestion from the Foundation that we consider a ‘special’ school as a site for library practice.It was following this, that we chose the Sanjay Center For special Education in Porvorim. We also decided to take this suggestion up as it was an uncharted area for us to go to a special school and read aloud stories. This idea was then presented to the parents during an orientation program and they too liked this idea and gave us the go ahead.
When I started to plan for my sessions, I decided to start with very simple stories as one of the two groups is the Hearing Impaired Group (Shruti) and the other is the Learning Disabled Group (Shraddha) and I was unsure of how much the children would understand and how they would respond.
To my delight, after a few sessions, I realised that both the groups are able to relate to the stories and respond very eloquently to the discussions that arise. The children have happily surprised me on so many accounts and dashed many of my assumptions to ground as both the groups present the most exciting and unexpected responses. The responses from the Hearing Impaired group come forth with the help of the teachers who sit with the children during the sessions. They talk to me and their teachers with the help of the sign language and the teachers then translate and tell me. It is a slow process but a very enriching process. The Learning Disabled group also comes with their teachers who support and help the children to share their thoughts. These teachers from both the groups patiently understand what I want to ask, explain to the children and encourage them to respond.
The teachers from both the groups initially were apprehensive about this new program and wondered about what benefit it would bring to their children. Over time, the teachers now fully support the program and help me by taking turns during each session to tell the story that I read aloud through the sign language for the Hearing Impaired group. Shraddha group teachers are a huge backup during my sessions and help manage some of the children who require help during their outbursts. They manage to calm down these children unobtrusively. All these teachers take responsibility in reminding the children to bring their books back on time and taking care of these books. While all this seems very nice to share, I have also realised that these are just two groups of special children who are listening to stories. There are so many other groups, so many children who need to listen to stories and share.
