It could be music for the hearing impaired. And it is not far off before the music will be heard by 1,130 students and 182 teachers in seven schools for the deaf and mute in Mumbai. These schools selected as the introductory batch, out of 29 schools in Mumbai, have been identified by the Nalanda Foundation, a public charitable trust, to receive aids for the hearing handicapped.

The Nalanda Foundation, a social initiative of Infra-structure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS),is a not-for-profit organisation that supports less privileged children by ensuring equality of opportunity in access to education.

In its current programme to help the hearing impaired in Mumbai schools, the foundation "seeks to benefit hearing and speech-impaired children from the lowest economic strata in Mumbai," says Anindya Mukerji, CEO, Nalanda Foundation. "A clear objective is to create a sustainable volunteering and adoption programme over the next three years to take forward the initial impetus and also to continuously help develop contemporary vocational skill development."

Instituted in 1999, the foundation raises financial and material resources for the education of children who are financially less privileged, learning-disabled, physically disadvantaged or gender disadvantaged. In its new initiative for the hearing impaired in Mumbai, the outlay to finance the education of a hearing impaired child is as low as Rs 500 per annum while any donor could choose to provide anything from Rs 500 per child for mapping hearing capabilities, Rs 5,000 per child for hearing aids, Rs 75,000 per child for learning resources, donations in the form of secondhand books, PCs or TVs, teacher development courses delivered by HR/training departments of their respective employers and volunteering part-time or full-time for the foundation at cleta.dias@nalandafoundation.org. The foundation also proposes to help 30,000 girl children in their education, particularly related to school infrastructure, teacher development, learning resources, and health and hygiene.

Currently, the foundation supports 146 schools across India benefiting over 50,000 children. These schools include government and muni-cipal schools, schools for the hearing-impaired, spastics, physically disabled and schools run by charitable organisations. The foundation supports schools where the fee is less than Rs 75 per month.

Mr Mukerji says the initiatives have delivered improvements in many areas. These include improvement of school infrastructure, installation of modern teaching practices, upgradation of teaching skills, improved teacher motivation, better understanding of concepts by students and improvement of the learning environment. The foundation uses the services of vendors where a clear set of learning outcomes is defined before the programme commences. Report of progress and evaluation of the programme is made available to the foundation for its independent assessment. The beneficiary schools and the donors are encouraged to participate in the evaluation of progress and are invited to provide their feedback.

Another initiative of the foundation is Schoolnet Gujarat Fund. This initiative, launched in June 2002, targets the rehabilitation of students in Gujarat affected by recent developments. It aims to adopt affected schools over a three-year period and support them through repair and installation of basic and teaching-related infrastructure, and upgrading teacher skills to significantly improve the quality of education. Implementation has already commenced in 10 schools with a student population of over 6,000 children.

The foundation has created a hallmark—Blue Dot—that denotes a socially sensitive, caring corporate which is committed to the cause of education. "The Bluedot is modelled on the lines of the Green Dot in Germany, and is used by brands and corporate entities to denote environment friendliness," explains Mr Mukerji.

"The Nalanda Foundation will recognise corporates as Bluedot companies on the basis of material of financial resources donated or through volunteering activities undertaken by the organisation's employees.

McDonald's, the fast food chain, is the first Indian corporate to be recognised as a Bluedot company by the Nalanda Foundation. The funds received from McDonald's will be utilised to create educational infrastructure and implement a quality, technology-based educational programme for two schools in Mumbai, one of them being Anjum-i-Islam Girls High School.

In Aid Of The Hearing Impaired