The quarterly parent’s meeting was held at Diya Foundation on 15th July 2022. The meeting began with an explanation of the ongoing short-term courses and financial literacy course. Post sharing the reports, the parents shared their observations on their children’s progress, strengths, and weaknesses that they’ve monitored at home. This helped the trainers understand the students and assist them in matching with future internship and job opportunities. The parents were also encouraged to guide their children toward being as independent as possible and improving personality development.
Then, Mr. Baretto from the Disability Welfare’s Association spoke about the importance of having a unified parents group. The group can have joint advocacies on behalf of the children and the challenges they face in their day-to-day lives. He also explained the importance of the UDID card. The UDID card can be used everywhere to avail benefits for children with disabilities.
Nayi Disha is an online/offline resource center for persons with intellectual disabilities. It helps them find verified service providers, access information resources, and join a community of supportive parents. They also have a helpline that can be accessed in multiple languages. A representative introduced a 30 days Future Readiness Program that can be accessed through WhatsApp. Once registered with the number the participants receive one pertinent piece of information per day for 30 days. This service is completely free of cost. Many parents signed up for it.
For the ending minutes, the founder, Mrs. Santamaria called for a student’s (Hemalatha) father to talk about the importance of the UDID Card and briefly introduced our future project: Self-Dependent joint living for Neurodiverse and Neurotypical Adults.