The Spastics Society of India, now called ADAPT (Able Disabled All People Together) is a Non-Government Organization (NGO) that was set up in 1972 by Padmashri Dr. Mithu Alur, a parent of a daughter who was born with cerebral palsy to address the lack of services and knowledge that existed at that time. The main aim was to alert the nation to their needs and show how the government and community could help them to be included into existing services.

Since no educational services existed, The Spastics Society of India began a unique model combining education and treatment under one roof. It moved children away from a medical hospital setting to a special school setting to demonstrate that children with multiple disabilities could be educated and get treatment through a holistic approach. Today many of the students with a little modification are pursuing careers in accounting, journalism, library sciences, finance, computing and some have set up their own successful businesses. Others have pursued academics at the Masters and Ph.D. level. Pedagogy, manpower training was interwoven into the first innovative model. The organization was unique in showing how professionalism could be delivered with care.

Today ADAPT is one of the largest NGO’s in India. From a special school started with three students it has grown to provide services that include assessment, treatment, education, support services for inclusion, counselling vocational guidance, advocacy, awareness, women’s empowerment programmes and employment training. The current direct services are provided in Mumbai at Colaba, Bandra, Chembur and in the slums of Dharavi. Skills Development was introduced for young adults with disability in 1989. Over 3,000 children and 10,000 families in Mumbai and over 100,000 around the country have benefited from the services.

Education for children with multiple disabilities has to be an integrated approach that addresses all these challenges. A unique, transdisciplinary approach to provide services like physio, occupational and speech therapy, social and psychological counselling and remedial education was developed and all services were provided under one roof. This approach became the hallmark of the organization, breaking the barrier between education, therapy and departments.

After two decades of pioneering special education in the country, a new way of educating children together in `Inclusive’ settings was created at the Bandra and Colaba Centres, in ICDS pre-school nurseries in Dharavi, and in mainstream schools. This pilot was tracked in a research mode with the establishment of National Resource Centre for Inclusion (NRCI) project. The organization successfully demonstrated how disabled children could be educated in regular schools through inclusive education. It has also been able to demonstrate through another action research project with UNICEF that children with disabilities can be mainstreamed into community settings within the budgetary parameters of the national ICDS programme. As an outcome of the projects the concept of ‘continuum of support’ as a basis for successful inclusion of children with disability has evolved.

Four decades of grassroots level service delivery has been paralleled with raising awareness through advocacy and sensitization campaigns, and research documenting and analyzing the practice and policies in the country. Much of the work has also been directed towards influencing national policy generally and legislation in particular to achieve universal education as mandated by the MDG of the UN (of which India is a signatory). Dr. Mithu Alur’s appointment on the governments various committees and in particular in the national Central Advisory Board for Education (CABE) has been a key driver in this area.

The most significant consequence of the sustained efforts of Dr. Alur and her team was when the then Education Minister announced that disabled children like all children would be included under the “Rights of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act” under which children with disabilities would have the same rights as any other children to education in mainstream educational institutions.

In 1989, the National Job Development Centre (JDC) now called the Skills Development Centre (SDC) was set up in Chembur in collaboration with the Spastics Society UK, The National Institute of Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), USA, Government of India Ministry of Social Justice and the European Union.  It was geared to give complete training facilities to each individual according to his or her ability to create job opportunities, placement and follow up services for all disabled clients. It was recognized by the Disability Welfare Commissioners Office in the Social Justice Department (Government of Maharashtra).

The SDC teaches various skills which prepare Persons with Disabilities (PWD) for becoming active members of the society and earning a livelihood. It also gives opportunities for forming Cooperatives and earning own livelihood in conjunction with others. Today, people are working in both private and public sector as programmers, account executives, and administrative executives, and web designers, trainers in computer applications, senior secretarial assistants, and graphic designers.

In keeping with the requirements of providing Inclusive Employment, ADAPT has developed Advanced Learning facilities in the three core areas of Computers, Tailoring and Textiles Designing  in conjunction with upgraded Soft Skills and Vocational Training. We have established procedures and solutions for ensuring sustained employment by PWDs and persons from the lower strata of society in the corporate and other companies.

At present 200 children with disabilities (Cerebral Palsy, Downs syndrome, intellectual impairment and autism)  are receiving benefits of education, training, assessment, therapy, skills development, art and craft, music, yoga and sports, psychological counselling, parents sensitization and empowerment. Our beneficiaries are provided with a carer for feeding, carrying and toileting along with a disabled friendly bus to drop them to their homes so that the parents are not burdened with carrying their disabled child. Since 1st February 2022 we have reopened our services in person to all children and we are also making visits into the slums to ensure no child with disability is left without services. Our social worker along with the peri petetic team ensures that services to those children who are unable to come to our centre are provided with all services of education and therapy at their doorstep.

There is an urgent need to fund the education and therapy of the children with special needs. Parents are unable to pay the contribution especially from the lower income group where children with disabilities are looked at as a burden and a curse to the family. The family does not think that they should spend their meagre resources on these children. We are therefore looking for sponsorship to ensure that these children are able to access their fundamental Right to Education.

Your contribution will help sponsor all services to the child namely education, therapy, remedial sessions, art and craft, action sports, music and co curricular activities and celebration of all festivals. This also includes visit to neurological as well as orthopaedic camps based on the need of the child.

ADAPT (formerly The Spastics Society of India) is a registered Society under the Societies Registration Act,1860 and as a Public Trust under the Bombay Public Trusts Act,1950 Mumbai, India. It is registered under section 12 A of the Income Tax Act and recognized to receive donations under section 80 G of the Income Tax Act.

It is governed by a Board of Trustees called the Governing Body (who are elected annually by its members at the Annual General Meeting). The Governing Body is supported by a team of co-opted members, who are closely involved in the planning; implementation and monitoring of ADAPT and provide advisory expertise from to time as requested. Eminent specialists from the medical and para-medical field also make up the Ethics Committee or the Institutional Review Board overseeing the Research and development of the organization. The organization also has an independent non-executive Board of Advisors comprised of specialists in various disciplines who advise the Trustees.

ADAPT’s mission is to influence and change public policy in order to create an inclusive, accepting, disability friendly India by demonstrating and promoting the philosophy of inclusion through model innovative techniques guided by the key principles and practices of inclusive education, employment, social justice and human rights.

The overall aim of the organization is to support India’s social and economic policy reform within a human rights context. ADAPT believes that disabled people have equal rights and opportunities within an inclusive society.

Under the pioneering leadership of Founder Chairperson, Dr. Mithu Alur, the organization has been honored by several national and international agencies as well as Government of India.