This non-profit is helping people with disabilities with education, employment

In 2003, Sonali Saini started Sol’s ARC in Mumbai to work directly with children and young adults with special learning and psycho-social needs.

After completing her master’s in special education and working in a school for children with special needs, Saini realised there were many gaps in the way education for children with disabilities was both conceptualised and implemented.

“There were no specific learning materials, or the kind of adaptations or accommodations required for them to stay in school; and teachers were not aware of them,” she tells SocialStory.

Saini believes while inclusion is a big part of the country’s education policy, there are challenges in its implementation. Children do not get the requisite support, especially in government schools, and most of them drop out without achieving basic foundational, literacy, or numeracy skills.

“This prevents them from taking up any vocational course and more than 82% land up in the cycle of poverty and are dependent on their families. This is especially true for children and young adults with cognitive, neuro-developmental disabilities like autism and other intellectual disabilities that require different kinds of support,” she points out.

Education alone is not enough

Sol’s ARC worked on a centre-based approach from three centres in Mumbai and Pune providing direct therapy and education intervention for children. Soon, they started working with schools and hospitals to help them with assessment and setting up resource centres. During the period, they worked directly with 1,000 children and young adults.

Almost 10 years later, a statement made by one of its students changed the course and direction of Sol’s ARC.

Sanskar, an autistic child, was six years old when he joined Sol’s Arc. When he was preparing for his Class 10 board exams, a documentary team came to film the activities at the centre.

“They asked him what he wanted to be in life. He said, ‘I want to grow up, go to office, and get married to my wife’. At the time, it seemed very sweet and touching to all of us but we also realised that what we were doing at the centre wouldn’t enable it,” Saini says.

Saini decided to pivot Sol’s ARC model. For two years, they worked with a few schools in Mumbai under the public private partnership (PPP) model to figure out the solution to integrate these children into mainstream classrooms.

“We thought, let’s focus in a way all children can learn better and by that time we had also understood that the teacher cannot work separately with one child, or two children in the classroom. We had a solution where they could work with all children. This became our premise,” Sonali says.

From education to employment

In 2016, Sol Arc’s first project at scale began with Educate Girls as part of the Development Impact Bond in Bhilwara, Rajasthan. It was aimed at increasing the learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy for children from Grades 3 to 5.

In the first year of the project, the data showed that over 60% of the children faced learning challenges, and that with the existing pedagogy, they would be unable to reach target outcomes. Sol’s ARC developed an inclusive learning pedagogy through a kit called 'Gyaan ka Pitara' and designed the training programmes.

A rigorous third party RCT (Randomized Control Trial) showed that the project surpassed all targets with 160% overall improvements in learning outcomes and 79% against the control group, which is equivalent to one year of additional learning. The programme has since scaled to over 2,00,000 children in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh, and continues to show significant gains for the most vulnerable children in these states.

While Sol’s ARC was trying to provide solutions in education at a systemic level, Saini says it became imperative to figure out what would happen after the children finished schooling. This realisation led to the employment model–where it works with vulnerable young adults, their parents, government and national institutes, NGOs, Sector Councils, and industry to create an inclusive environment and provide employment opportunities.

“We realised there are no certified courses or jobs mapped to this population. First, we created certification courses through Sector Councils for basic numeracy and reading skills. We knew there could be behavioural challenges because this is an environment where they could be on their own—travelling and working. Also, we had to understand parents’ readiness in terms of how ready they are to allow their children to work,” Saini says. After training and gauging how job-ready they are, they are provided with internships, and placements.

Sol’s ARC looked at two sectors—hospitality and retail, starting off with Lemon Tree Hotels and Amazon.

It started its pilot with seven people in Amazon during the pandemic where young adults worked in job roles like scanning, sorting, and packing in delivery and service centres. It also partnered with NGOs across Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi, Bengaluru, and Chennai to create a learning management system to disseminate course content.

So far, 53 young adults have been placed in Amazon, and a new batch of 150 people is undergoing training. Currently, job mappings at Lemon Tree Hotels are also under way. Sanskar, who was reason for Sol ARC’s pivot, worked for two years in Amazon and is now taking a break due to some personal challenges.

Saini says retention has been the major challenge so far. Also, only companies that are already inclusive and working with individuals with speech and hearing impairment or with physical disabilities can be ready for people with autism or intellectual disabilities.

“Even with Amazon, it took three years. They had to adopt the right HR practices, specific accommodations and a sensitisation to flow across the organisation. While a lot of companies are open to exposure visits, note everyone is ready to take on placements. It’s a tough journey,” she says.

Systemic integration is key

Sol’s ARC’s other initiatives, Project Samavesh, Project Ankur, and the Rural Livelihood Mission aim at far-reaching impact.

Project Samavesh works in collaboration with the Tamil Nadu government to increase identification and improve Foundational Literacy and Numeracy outcomes for children with disabilities through systemic integration.

Sol’s ARC works as a technical partner and Project Management Unit (PMU) for the inclusive education department Samagra Shiksha. A tech-based tool screens children at an intersection of health, mental health, disability, and nutrition. The project provides access to learning material, introduces capacity building to teachers, and special educators ensure children with special needs are included in mainstream classrooms and also ensures system integration in three innovation districts, Kanchipuran Villupuram and Theni.

Mission Ankur, launched in Madhya Pradesh in 2020, is a state-led initiative that follows the guidelines of the NIPUN Bharat initiative and National Eduacation Policy (NEP), to make learning in Grades 1-3 holistic, integrated, inclusive, and engaging for all students. Deploying the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) approach, Sol’s ARC combined it with its own adaptations and conceptual frameworks for both numeracy and literacy (English), and created new multi-grade lesson plans and multi-level classrooms for learning.

When Sol’s ARC launched his urban livelihood project, Saini discovered that 70% of people with disabilities (PwD) are in rural areas. This led to the launch of its Rural Livelihood Project with technical assistance from National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and support from The/Nudge’s Incubator. Sol's ARC is an incubatee of Cohort 9 of The/Nudge Incubator that is working on India’s most critical livelihood challenges and aiming to create impact at scale.

Saini explains, “We started with a pilot project in partnership with NDDB in their model village, Mujkuva in Anand, Gujarat. We had to start from door-to-door surveys to identify the PwDs living in the area, worked on getting their identity documents, helping them with government schemes, formation of Self-Help Groups (SHGs), organised extensive livelihood mapping at village level to appropriate opportunities, training, and support.” Sol’s ARC is now looking at scaling with governments, starting with Rajasthan.

Sol’s ARC is a non-profit organisation that receives funds from national and international foundations and CSR funds. But Saini says it’s challenging to convince investors to invest in “systems change”.

“Our way forward is to replicate our education models and the rural livelihood project in various states. We try to institutionalising them so that any government or NGO can take them up and support in implementation. In the next decade, we want to bring in equity in the space of education and livelihood,” Saini says.