Close to 500 children and adults with special needs came under one roof on Sunday.
In front of an audience made up of people from all walks of life, the participants, with cognitive, neurological and physical challenges, tried their hands at cooking and textile printing.
Games and musical sessions were also part of the programme.
The programme, titled Poornam’22 – ‘Ek Muskaan ke Liye , was organised by a city-based non-profit, UNMISH.
The organisation runs a school for children with special needs at New Alipore in southwest Kolkata.
At the culinary session on Sunday, they learnt how to do simple non-flame cooking.
“When these children are hungry, they are dependent on people around them. We have been training them in non-flame cooking so that they become self reliant,” said Nita Diwan, the founder of UNMISH.
“We have been doing this at our institute since years. But today we invited other people, and their parents, to see that the children can learn and do something and be independent enough,” said Diwan.
Home confinement during the pandemic has made many children and individuals with special needs more “dependent” on people around them. Their “learning” has suffered, said psychologists and special educators working with them.
The long closure of physical school also took a toll on parents of children with disabilities who had to monitor them round-the-clock, at times without any help.
At the programme in Ballygunge on Sunday, a team of students and budding chefs from IIHM helped the participants in the culinary session.
At the textile workshop, fabric dyes and simple techniques were taught.
The show was put up in front of people from all walks of life — bureaucrats, principals and businessmen.
Rituparna Sengupta, actor; musicians Tanmoy Bose and Bickram Ghosh, Sudha Kaul, vice-chairperson of the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy and consul generals of the US, Japan and Australia were part of the audience.
