TISA Interacts with Students of Social Work

A contingent of 24 students of Masters of Social Work from Parul University , Vadodara, Gujrat is visiting Goa for their study tour. As a part of this, they are interacting with many non-profit organizations, NGOs, industries, resorts and other institutions to enrich their learning experience.

As a part of this tour, today was the meeting with TISA Goa Chapter. I and Dnyanesh Kenkre gave a presentation on TISA activities. We started by showing the short film TISA Helps made by Hyderabad SHG. After that, we moved to how TISA was formed, how it evolved. We also talked about how TISA approaches stammering, and how we bring about a paradigm shift in how we see stammering- not as a speech impediment, but as a diversity!

We had a walk-through of pictures of all TISA activities over the years. The session was interactive, and more like a discussion. We discussed with the students and faculty about how would they deal with a student who stammers. They shared that they did have a PWS student, and how they tried to create a conducive environment for him.

We realized the enthusiasm and passion for the subject of the Parul University students when we threw the session open for questions. We got some real intelligent questions like how do we convey the message of ‘Acceptance’ which is difficult to understand? What do we do when PWS don’t understand it? What messages do we try to convey in our documentaries? What challenges are we facing?

When we shared the challenges of TISA, we some great inputs from the class on how we can deal with it- collaborate with SLPs and create an eco-system of therapy + self help- SLPs recommending self-help group meetings. Creating more noise during public events, stalls etc. It was a food for thought for both of us.

A take-away of the event was- one of the faculty said that he has been through stammering as a child, but now has somehow got over it. He expressed his willingness to initiate a Vadodara chapter. Hoping that this idea sees the light of day very soon!

TISA salutes the Parul University students for being very open-minded in this learning session on the Self Help movement for stammering that TISA is attempting in India.

A special thanks to the management of Ravindra Bhavan (A Govt. run Cultural auditorium) for allowing us to conduct this talk.

Some glimpses of the interaction-