Crest fallen with the
unexpected passing away of Dr.
Meera Banik our beloved ex
President … End of an era…!!
Life is either a great adventure
or nothing… quoted the great
Hellen Keller!
The news of passing away of our
ex-president Dr. Meera Banik
came as a shock and disbelief
especially after her great
presence and lively countenance
in the Executive Committee
meeting held just two days
before. We are left crest fallen
and speechless. We all at Aaina
miss you so much madam… the
emptiness still continues! It’s
a personal loss to me as I lost
a great teacher, guide, friend
and motherly figure!! I join
with my colleagues and esteemed
members in praying God to rest
the great soul in Peace!!
Coming back to the current
activities, the significant and
much awaited association with
Sense International to extend
the services for children with
deaf blindness and multi sensory
impairment took off with great
enthusiasm! Another challenge
yet an experience in the
inclusion spirit of Aaina got
added with this project coming
on board. This gave us an
opportunity to learn of many
uncovered and untouched area and
a situation where challenges
were met with challenging
actions for the challenged in
the field of disability!
Heartfelt thanks to Sense
International India for giving
this opportunity to learn about
MSI and grow with you in serving
the much marginalized sector
within disability.
Taking up the issues of women
workers in informal sector is
the other work in the area of
women’s empowerment carried on
in the last year. Thanks to SEWA
& ILO for the trust bestowed on
us for the community
intervention through the impact
assessment project. It is a
great experience getting into
the issues of women workers in
informal sector with a focus on
domestic workers. Nalini Nayak
from SEWA needs a special
mention for her continuous and
relentless input to the project
and giving it a shape.
The regular project of Inclusive
WASH and CBR along with “We
Care” took a momentum in the
current year with additional
component and also in terms of
professional intervention. While
the Inclusive WASH project
supported by Water Aid India
provided an opportunity to
promote inclusion in WASH sector
the other two projects that
focuses more on disability also
included WASH as an intervention
agenda.
The project supported by DFID-
PACS came to an end with a huge
learning of the problems in the
intervention area and the impact
through our intervention. Thanks
to Mr Ranjan Panda and team for
taking up the systematic
evaluation of the project and
coming up with the achievements
and challenges. The four years
project helped us to reach out
to 60500 families creating
awareness on Govt schemes and
benefits. 12420 families were
directly part of the inclusive
development agenda linking with
govt schemes through MGNREGA,
IAY, NRLM etc. Nearly 720
children those were out of
school and non initiators were
admitted in Schools including
217 children with disabilities.
Children were also part of the
School management Committee
(SMC) and nearly 117 children
took part including 14 children
with disabilities in SMC.
Kallola-2 got declared in the
month of March 2016 with
additional component of Junior
Kallola having children for film
making and partnership extended
to CII and we look forward to it
with its new incarnation.
I take this opportunity to thank
all the esteemed members,
colleagues, support agencies,
donors and friends those have
been associated with us directly
or indirectly to make things
happen. I look forward to all of
your support in coming years…
Mrs. Sneha Mishra
Secretary, aaina
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