Madhya Pradesh-Based Voluntary Organization Working To Uplift Children With Special Needs

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Anand Service Society (ASS) based in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, is striving to mainstream deaf and speech impaired children into society by providing education, training and employment assistance to them.

The society was founded in the year 2000 by Gyanendra Purohit and his wife, Monica as a devotion to Gyanendra’s brother, a deaf and speech-impaired person who sadly lost his life in a train accident. The organization is a tribute to him and others like him who spend their whole lives without hearing and speaking, according to a press release from the organization.

The Society runs its residential centers in Indore and in tribal and rural areas like Dhar and Alirajpur. It also runs a helpline for the deaf and speech impaired with support from Tukoganj police station in Indore.

Founders Gyanendra and Monica composed the Indian national anthem in sign language in 2003 and the same was recognized by the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Due to these efforts, around 70 lakh hearing and speech-impaired people in the country were able to sing the national anthem for the first time.

The couple also initiated India’s first deaf and speech-impaired-friendly police station at Tukoganj where people can now lodge complaints in sign language.

With this initiative more than 10,000 individuals with these disabilities have received justice, the press release said.

The founders and their organization are credited to have rescued more than 500 people with special needs stuck in different parts of the country during the COVID-19 lock- down, which got the government’s attention so that it stepped in to help them.

The couple also managed to provide food rations to several people during the pandemic.

The organization also provides college education through distance learning as well as employment assistance by providing real-time training.

In 2005, four deaf and speech-impaired people passed a teachers’ eligibility exam under the ASS founders’ coaching but the education department denied them jobs.

This prompted Gyanendra Purohit to study law and become an advocate. He took this case to the high court and won. Now, there is a separate reservation in teachers’ posts for people with special needs.

The Society provides hostel facility to almost 400 special needs children every year at three different locations. It also provides speech-interpreting facilities to hearing-impaired people in court, interviews, board exams, and cultural and social programs.

In 2008, this couple also took up the fight to get a reservation quota for the admission of people with special needs in government-run ITI colleges.

After years of struggle and legal battles, with the help of activism and media, in the year 2016, the government announced the admission of 419 seats for the deaf and 108 seats for the blind.

Now around 25,000 special children are enrolled in normal schools of MP.

The Society and its founder couple received the Rashtriya Swayam Siddh Samman award from Jindal Steel Foundation in 2016 for their initiative to identify, to reward and recognize grassroots leaders and innovators.

Monica Purohit was recently named among the top 100 women achievers of India.

Global superstar Amitabh Bachchan recently honored the husband and wife on his show Kaun Banega Crorepati in its special segment Karamveer 2020.

All donations to Anand Service Society are exempted under 80 G of Income tax Act. Bank details of the organization are as follows. Details about how to donate within India and from abroad, including bank account numbers are available on the website at anandservicesociety.org.