ADAPT’s Determined Inclusive Education Mission

Founded in 1972 as the Spastics Society of India and rechristened ADAPT (Able Disabled All People Together) in 2007, this pioneer special needs education NGO has transformed into the country’s foremost advocate of inclusive education for children and youth with disabilities Four decades since its first education-cum-therapy centre opened its doors to three special needs children in Colaba, Mumbai, the Spastics Society of India (SSI, estb. 1972) rechristened ADAPT (Able Disabled All People Together) in 2007, has successfully engineered a unique education and training model which has empowered children and young adults with disabilities to become gainfully employed in mainstream vocations. The country’s foremost special needs education NGO, ADAPT’s services include assessment and diagnosis, therapy, counselling, inclusive education, skills training, job placement, and home management programmes for differently abled children. Currently, ADAPT’s paramedical, educational, vocational and community services impact over 3,000 children and 10,000 families in Mumbai.  Founded in 1972 by Dr. Mithu Alur, a pioneer of inclusive education in India, “to establish rights and entitlements for children, youth and families with disability, and to introduce reformative action in policy and legislation so that all existing laws and services of education, health, welfare and employment are inclusive, thereby ensuring that the disabled who today suffer massive exclusion in the country are mainstreamed and employed,” ADAPT runs four education/therapy centres and a skills development centre in Mumbai — a model replicated in 24 states countrywide. HISTORY An English literature alumna of Delhi University, Mithu Alur’s extraordinary journey began as a young mother who refused to accept the medical prognosis that her daughter Malini, born in 1966 and diagnosed with cerebral palsy, would remain a vegetable throughout her life. (Malini is a double postgraduate of London University, an internationally acclaimed activist and co-chairperson of the ADAPT Rights Group). In 1968, given the conspicuous lack of education and therapy facilities for disabled children in India, Alur moved to London and enrolled two-year-old Malini in a special needs school while she trained as a special educator at the Institute of Education, University of London. In 1972, the family returned to Mumbai to promote the Spastics Society of India (SSI) in an army bungalow in Colaba.  “The initial years were very difficult. Societal attitudes to children with special needs were a greater disability than the disability itself,” says Dr. Alur recalling that she encountered ignorance, pity and indifference. “It was a Herculean task to convince people that though cerebral palsy was a non-curable condition, it was amenable to therapy and training. SSI’s message was that through early intervention, therapy and training, children and youth with disability can be empowered to become independent and productive members of society.” In 1998, after providing special education services for more than two decades, ADAPT initiated an evolutionary shift from special schools to inclusive education. This breakthrough was an outcome of Alur’s doctoral research titled Invisible Children: A Study of Policy Exclusion (London University) which revealed the alarming exclusion of children with disabilities from the Union government’s Integrated Child Development…