Growth of the developmental services in India

Abstract

The purpose of this work was primarily to help the association FAME – India with a set of issues they were facing. It was specifically oriented towards the entity Swavalambana (FS) the sheltered workshop which was a more recent entity. FS was also facing strong changes as the profitability strategy was given up for a more holistic approach of the DA with the objective to make him more independent, but also bring him a complete life balance through leisure, celebrations, sport… The idea is to address the whole DA’s need if possible. In order to achieve such a huge change, FAME wanted to develop a document which would follow the DA. It would present who he is, what are is capabilities, what he likes, wants etc.. such a document already existing in L’Arche, we tried to inspire ourselves from it to plan for FAME Individual Development Plan. The different part of the future IDP have been decided and the project will start with five (5) Differently Abled persons from FS in January. While creating the document we faced multiple issues. Many of them came from the strong differences between Canada and India in this field. The resulting document will have to take into account the specifics of the Indian situation. Thus personal goals were not an option yet, but we decided to focus on common skills which could be easier to follow by the staff in FS. It also implied that independence is a stronger need than in more supportive societies. That is why FAME made it one of its top priorities. Behavioural challenges are one of the main issue stated by both FAME management and FS management. As such it has been a priority for this work to transfer to them as many tools as possible in this area. The study of new techniques as well as the adaptation of L’Arche process to FAME context was at the heart of the last meeting. The diverse meetings hopefully brought to FAME entities new ways to get to Phase 2. It was really inspiring to help them how I could. I learned a lot through the process thanks to all the staff member there. The specificities of India in this field makes it really challenging. Being able to grasp this, even in a mimimal way. I was glad I had to adapt my understandings and knowledge to it. Many thanks thus to all FAME India, to allow me to participate in this new development phase. They gave a lot of credits to my previous experiences and analysis, which was really empowering. This is why I also want to thanks Mr Trilochan Sastry who put me in touch with the association. He gave me a great opportunity to experience India in a whole different way