26th May 2015

- The Hindu

Challenge converted into opportunity

S. Manimekalai and S. Girija of Suviseshamuthu Christian Mission Girls’ Higher Secondary School at Satchiyapuram near Sivakasi are special children with a common deficiency — residual vision, with 80 to 90 per cent loss.

Girija has an added disadvantage, a nervous problem. But both of them made their scribes sweat it out in the SSLC examination. As a result, they have emerged toppers in the State among physically challenged children.

The duo and three other special children have passed the SSLC examination from this school. They were mainstreamed with normal children under the Inclusive Education for Disabled at Secondary Stage Programme. Manimekalai, with a score of 474 and ranked second in the State, wants to enter Civil Services to “put an end to corruption” and serve children like her.

The daughter of a worker in a fireworks manufacturing unit, Manimekalai is brought to school on a bicycle by her uncle Palpandian for the last seven years.

Girija, with 468 and ranked third, wants to be a Chartered Accountant “to help the poor and start a school for the visually challenged.”

The school has been training them by providing magnifiers, tape recorders and book readers offered by philanthropists, says S. Rajadurai, correspondent. They are among the 25 special children studying in standard sixth to twelfth in the school. The combined efforts of teachers, resource teachers and normal students helped them in doing well in examinations, says S. Mercy Deborah, Headmistress. The encouragement was so high that the school got special permission for a child with hearing disability to appear for English, an exempted subject.