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Onam, the harvest festival of Kerala was celebrated with great fun and frolic by the differently abled children at SPACE on the 13th  of September. The students got the opportunity to socialize with everyone by rocking one another in the swing.  The celebration was made special by the onakkaligal played by the students.

The games included musical chair, Aadu- puli kali and passing the parcel. The highlight of the day was the onappattu sung by all the students. The parents were also involved in the celebration by  participating in the games. Gifts were given to all students on the occasion to make them special by the Executive Director of SPACE  Mr. Arun.

A training programme was conducted on the 9th of September for the teachers of Mridula Sparsham, a Centre for children with special needs. Four teachers were given training on the educational activities in the free software GCompris, childsplay, Pysycache, Tux math, Tux typing and KLettres. They were also briefed about the activities that could be done online from sites such as starfall.com, jacob’s lesson, softschool.com and sheppard software. Custom live CDs of SPACE were given to the centre to help them assist their students in their educational activities.

A summer camp ‘Snehakkoodu’ was organised at Insight centre to nurture creative, intellectual and social skills in special children. 25 students participated in the camp which was held from 22 to 26 April 2013. Activities and games were held to encourage interaction, communication, concentration, besides giving children exposure to various new experiences with the help of technology. An interaction among parents was also held guided by Mr. Brahmanayakam Mahadevan, Patron of Focus Forth India. On the final day the students exhibited their creative talents through a skit titled ‘snehakkoodu’.

Insight centre for special children observed Autism Awareness Day on 2 April 2013. It became part of the Light it Up Blue campaign when all the students, parents and teachers arrived at the centre dressed in blue.

Specially made posters were put up at the centre to draw attention to various facts relating to autism. The centre will observe Autism Awareness Month in April and will organise a camp for special children during the month.

A month long training programme for the visually challenged got underway in Kannur and Kozhikode districts in April 2013. As part of its efforts to reach out to the visually disabled in the north of Kerala, SPACE networked with Kerala Federation of the Blind (KFB) to organise the programme. In Kannur, the training was held at the KFB unit from 15 April 2013 and at Vocational Training Centre of KFB at Kundayithode in Kozhikode from 17 April 2013. 22 visually challenged students attended the programme.

20 PG students led by Dr. Nazeer, Social Scientist, Psychiatry Department of Medical College Thiruvananthapuram visited Insight centre at Murinjapalam as a part of their commmunity work on 31 January 2013. Mr. Arun M, Executive Director of SPACE briefed them about the  objectives of Insight and also about the free software used in the centre. Mrs Nila, explained the activities carried out at the centre. The visitors learned first hand how individualised educational plans are carried out for each child at the centre and the methods and approaches of the teachers.

The engineers at SPACE also demonstrated various technologies being developed internally to improve the children’s gross motor skills, attention span and eye hand co-ordination.

Dr Nazeer and his students commended SPACE and Insight centre for actively pursuing various technologies for the benefit of special children. They also extended their support for referral services and intervention programmes for the students at the centre.