Adhar Badlapur

This Republic Day, was special to me. After unfurling the National Flag and paying obeisance to our great nation (with my colleagues) at the Nehru Science Centre and the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, the institutes that I have the honour to lead and be the first among the equals, my wife and I spent the rest of the day with Adhar Badlapur (www.adhar.org), a home away from home for the mentally challenged children.

Adhar (www.adhar.org) is a God sent Institute for the mentally retarded children and their eternally worried and naggingly burdened parents, who almost always have one major worry which haunts them all their life, “ What after them who will take care for their mentally retarded children”. Adhar provides life time shelter to the 300 plus mentally challenged children in the age group of 18 to 70. The ever compassionate, 200 plus employees at Adhar, with patronage, guidance, appreciation and support from the group of apostles of service - the Trustees of Adhar- provide 24x7x365 days a year unending service to the inmates.

Adhar was established on 17th January 1993 and has just entered its silver jubilee. It has been bestowed with three national awards. It was an honour to listen to the Chairman and an exemplary leader of Adhar, Mr. Vishwas Gore and the Trustees of Adhar on the triumphs and tribulations that they have had to face during this historic journey and the ever increasing challenges that they are continuing to face to keep this Institute running. Their agony of ever increasing debt, (not withstanding the benevolent support that the institution gets from several donors both institutions and individuals) that Adhar is accumulating year on year and their constant fear if this institution can continue to survive, has compelled me to post this and make an appeal to all my Facebook friends to please please help Adhar by donating generously to keep this institution going. You can donate whatever little you can to Adhar.

The Trustees have set a nominal target of raising 2.5 Crores of Rupees as corpus fund during this silver jubilee year, from the benevolent donors -individuals and corporates- which can ensure that the institution continues to run despite the ever increasing costs. May I therefore once again appeal to one and all to please donate generously to Adhar. You can visit their website www.adhar.org to know the details and ways and means to donate.

Mental Retardation has been the most neglected area of disabilities on account of limited public awareness and lack of adequate Government support. The afflicted persons due to their mental inabilities cannot create an impression of compassion among the public like other differently abled persons and the parents of mentally retarded children are so overwhelmingly burdened with their nagging worries of what after them that there is little hope from them to work for creating a public awareness on the Mental Retardation. There is no easy and permanent treatment in medical science for mental retardation. This condition cannot be cured but can be managed by constant therapy, care, monitoring and medicines.

A mentally retarded person needs support throughout his / her life. It’s very difficult for him / her to become completely independent in terms of physical, mental & financial capabilities. Hence, the result is, old parents of these mentally retarded persons are in nagging worry that “After us what? Who will take care of my special child?” The citizens can help by creating awareness and donating generously to such causes and to institutions such as Adhar who have taken it upon themselves to work towards this noble cause.

Thank you all for your patient reading and looking forward to your benevolent donation to Adhar. All donations are tax exempted under 80G.