CHENNAI: Gayathri Raveesh would have never imagined her life would change after a stainless steel plate slipped from her hand 30 years ago in a small house in Tumkur, Karnataka. Her only son Avinash was 11-months-old when she dropped the plate, making a loud noise. “I thought he would start crying but he did not,” said Gayathri who later found out that her son was hearing impaired.
Five years later she did her diploma in education (DEd) in hearing impairment and her son became her first student. But he would not be her last.
In 1997, she started the Helen Keller Integrated Educational Society, a school for both parents and children with hearing disability. She went on to complete bachelors (BEd) and masters (MEd) degrees, specialising as a teacher in hearing impairment. Mostly focusing on children from remote backgrounds, the school teaches, and also guides children to proper schools, after their basic training.
“The time taken for children to learn differs according to their learning capacity,” says Gayathri, who has tutored more than a hundred children and parents. She added, “The institution is a small group and we run the school with the funds we collect from parents.”
Avinash studied in different special schools in Bangalore and the Little Flower Special School, Chennai. He also completed a diploma in computer science in Siddaganga Polytechnic, Tumkur and his bachelors in computer applications (BCA) “from regular colleges,” she says proudly.
Avinash is now a computer technician in Channabasavishwara Institute of Technology and happily married.
“What I usually see is, these kids who are so-called ‘disabled’ are generally smarter in other aspects,” Gayathri said and added, “The children tend to see the world as shown by their parents, so it is our duty to tell them that they are not disabled but efficiently-abled.”
Gayathri is now the president, Karnataka Deaf Children and Parents Federation and an advisor to the Tumkur Deaf Association. She was a participant in the southern zone meeting of course coordinators organised by the National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Multiple Disabilities here on Saturday.