2024 Medha Annual Day

(New England Chapter)

by

Sandhya Madhikunta, Himabindhu Vedagiri, Meera Sunder, Vaidehi Venkatesan, Vaibavi Gopal

Sankara Healthcare Foundation celebrated their third Medha Annual Day event on Saturday, May 04, 2024, at 2.00 PM at the First Congregational Church, Shrewsbury, MA. Approximately 150 people attended the event and around 50 volunteers helped to make the event a huge success.

About Medha:

Medha is an initiative that provides social interactions, hindu cultural instruction, math and ELA to  Blessed by Pujyasri Jagadguru Sri Sankara Vijayendra Saraswathi Sankaracharya Swamigal of Moolamnaya Sarvagnya Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Peetham, this initiative that had humble beginnings in 2019, grew into a community that embraces families with neurodiverse children. Medha is very unique in finding a way to include every child, irrespective of the extent of their disability and maximize their potential. Routinely children who might have never been considered to be part of a group in other settings, are given leadership opportunities, like giving the welcome speech.

Medha Annual day was organized to celebrate the entire year’s tireless efforts of all the teachers, the differently abled students and their families. It was a milestone celebration of Medha’s successful fifth year of service since their inception in 2019.

What is taught: Medha teachers are committed toward their student's success. While the primary focus is on slokas/bhajans/Bhagavad Gita, Math and English Language Arts (ELA) are part of the curriculum as well. Math/ELA continue to be areas that are challenging to Medha students and their families. In an attempt to offer them a hand, Medha's highly qualified and talented Math and ELA teachers continuously come up with innovative ways of engaging and teaching children newer concepts. Many children have benefited from this and continue to make progress. Beyond Shlokas, Math and ELA, this year, Medha expanded its curriculum to chess, devanagari writing and reading practice. There are a few other activities which are in the pipeline like art class, yoga class, language classes  and 3D printing.

The format for learning: Children who don't function well in groups due to either emotional challenges or struggles with waiting are taught one on one through zoom and others who long for company and friendships are taught in groups, again through zoom, to build camaraderie over time. The  material Medha children are taught is also matched to the child's ability to participate. The entire approach is strength based and highly inclusive. Students are taught short shlokas, bhajans, short stories with lots of illustrations and long shlokas.

About the Teachers: All Medha teachers are volunteers who are here to learn and make a difference. They continuously seek feedback and try to learn more about the students. They are very receptive to parents suggestions, and are flexible in their approach.  Medha teachers actively network in the community to find new opportunities for the children to showcase their talent. They  continuously encourage kids to attend various events in temples and organizations throughout the year to help expose the children to new social situations thereby building their self confidence and flexibility. It might be worth mentioning that such a model is not very common in our community currently.

Another unique feature of the Medha initiative is that they involve junior teachers who are middle school and rising high school students that serve as excellent role models. The teachers are energetic, enthusiastic, kind and  compassionate toward the Medha students.  They are true collaborators and champions to the neurodivergent students.

Parent testimony: Many of us (special needs neurodiverse families) are touched by the immense love and warmth of teachers. I am proud to say that we are one of the families who have been with the Medha since day one. We started our journey in the basement of one of the special parents and it makes me so happy to see Medha grow to this extent. We have seen many new volunteers joining the team over the past five years and we are pretty sure the pilot team of teachers are very determined to carefully choose volunteers to accommodate the growing needs of neuro-diverse families.

The day of the event in MA: On the day of the event, we were warmly welcomed by the volunteers at the front desk and checked us in and gave us a name tag and a brochure. The event started with a welcome address by Smt. Radha Krishna followed by a welcome note from Chi. Nikhil Kannan (senior student of Medha Group) supported by Kum. Sumedha Giridharan on behalf of all Medha students. It was very heartwarming and reassuring to  witness a neurodiverse student starting the event with a welcome note which is otherwise a very rare opportunity. MCs for the event were Kum. Adrushya Iyer and Kum. Anagha Visak. They gave a brief introduction about Sankara Healthcare Foundation and Medha. A brief mention of Medha’s journey for 5 years was made and shared a few cute pictures of the students who were with Medha since day one.

The main event commenced, with differently-abled children of different ages displaying varying talents - from chanting slokas, singing bhajans to enacting shlokas. For the students who get Math and ELA lessons in Medha, a short video of the instruction and their participation was shared with the audience. Visual, spatial, and auditory accommodations were made for every single child to participate successfully in the event. This was especially wonderful to witness because events like this don't happen very often. Each student received a memento along with the certificate after chanting slokas and bhajans. The icing on the cake was the recognition of two students from Medha, who received the MCAS (Alt) Achievement Award for 2023. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the ELA/Math teachers for their unwavering trust and encouragement, which made this achievement possible.

This year’s celebrations had a new addition to the format - students chanted in groups showcasing their ability to work in harmony with their peers. Medha teachers worked on two key skills for this activity - waiting for one’s turn and teamwork, both being fundamental blocks of enabling independence in our children in group settings. Taking it a step further, the teachers incorporated reading scripts of the slokas, enabling the children to read the meaning and understand it for each verse. It was beautiful to watch the Medha parents and teachers work in unison with one goal in mind - celebrate Medha children on the annual day.

It was very heartwarming to see so many Medha community volunteers commit their time in different ways to make it special for the Medha students. Some volunteers helped set up the stage with pieces of wood and beautiful soft bedspreads and sheets, while others brought meals made at home for all to eat. There was a photo booth to capture memorable pictures offering us an opportunity to connect and socialize over group pictures and food. A live video stream link was made available for families that are based far away to watch.

Smt. Arulselvi Kumaresan and Smt. Harini Janamanchi honored all Medha junior teachers.

Smt. Sumathi Ravindrababu shared her emotional thoughts and gave the vote of thanks and appreciated the efforts put in by all the children and their families as well as the organizers and instructors followed by Smt. Jayashree Yamsani felicitating and recognizing all Medha teachers with a flower pot and a small token of appreciation. After the felicitation, a Kahoot game was conducted on all the avatars and basic math and ELA which was thoroughly enjoyed by students and the parents. The event concluded with Harati by all the teachers and the students of Medha.

Differently-abled children and their families are often a marginalized group in community settings. They seldom get equal opportunities to learn and grow. Parents of differently-abled children often work very hard towards inclusion opportunities, hoping this will eventually lead to equal citizenship opportunities and a higher sense of self-worth in their loved ones. However, it is an unfortunate truth that there are not many truly inclusive programs out there. The biggest barrier amongst community partners seems to be the lack of awareness and willingness to listen to this marginalized community, learn and adapt. Medha is growing year after year in creating a kind community which is inclusive and compassionate towards neuro diverse families attempting to erase the unsaid strong boundaries that are often drawn preventing the neurodiverse kids to have an equal opportunity in society. We all wish many more years of success to Medha and dream of a world with many more organizations like Medha.

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