Twenty-year-old specially abled Rani Lohar is very fond of making candles. Creative and colour-loving, this youngster from the School of Hope also knows the technique pretty well. Lohar was adjudged one of the winners at a candle-making competition in Jamshedpur on Thursday.

Around 25 intellectually challenged youngsters bet-ween 18 and 35 years had participated in this competition organised at Dhatkidih Community Centre by the Parents' Association of Mentally Han-dicapped, Jamshedpur.

The participants belonged to social organisations - the Parents' Association of Mentally Handicapped, Jamshedpur, School of Hope, Northern Town, and START, Telco.

In a first-of-its-kind initiative, the programme was organised to identify people who can be engaged in professional candle-making. The association has one such centre at Dhatkidih, which engages 15 special youngsters.

The organisation, which implements schemes of the National Trust under the ministry of social justice and empowerment in the East Singhbhum district, aims to involve intellectually impaired workers in this business.

The participants were provided with raw materials such as wax, wicks and moulds to make candles. They were judged on the basis of look, technicalities and finishing. The competition was divided into three categories - Group A, which made normal candles, Group B, which made designer candles such as teddy bear candles, and Group C to make tea light candles. The groups were formed according to participants' mental ability.

"Our organisation works towards the welfare of people with disabilities, especially the intellectually impaired ones. We have been making candles for the last six years. Since the turnover has been decent over the past couple of years, we thought to engage more special people to ensure some kind of employment and at the time organise a fun-filled competition. If we have a good marketing team, we can work wonders for their welfare," said P. Babu Rao, secretary of the Parents' Association of Mentally Handicapped, Jamshedpur.

The winners - Tushar Das from Group A, Rani Lohar from Group B and Rajan Rajak from Group C - will be awarded later during a function organised by the association.