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COHESION COHESION
The Central Institute on Mental Retardation is perhaps a one-of-its-kind institution in this world. Keen observations, ongoing research, an innate desire born out of humane principles to allow life to flourish, on the part of its founding director and moving spirit, Reverend Father Thomas Felix CMI, has put CIMR today on the world map. It is befitting therefore to attempt to understand the "spirit" behind CIMR.
No single word can epitomize CIMR; however, one thing stands clear. Cohesion. In all its background and history, in all its activities, in all its research-cum-developmental efforts, in its various centers and programmes, it is clear that the corner stone of Three Cs is deployed in a cohesive manner. Nothing is standalone. Mentally challenged are treated as a part of the community. Their activities and programmes are towards normalization. An interesting aspect that stands out in this is that each of the units, activities, and programmes, are also a "normal" thing... for example training for mothers, training of teachers, vocational programmes, arts/cultural/sports activities; all these are the "norm" for ordinary humans. Bringing together all these under the overall Three Cs (Comprehension, Competency and Creativity) is indeed a gigantic cohesive product.
From identifying a human child with arrested development, treatment of such children in their infancy itself with therapy-based techniques, training the mothers and family members (the first nuclear community for a human being) on taking special care, creating awareness among the larger society, training teachers to conduct special education programmes, performing ongoing research on the various activities and aspects of techniques, creating/developing indigenous tools for the classrooms, redefining a classroom as not a place away from home but as the general environment in which a human being finds himself/herself, performing skills-based training for self-help and self-development, providing various environments for the development (such as Kuttichal Farm, Kovalam Freedom Centre, DCMR, Asha Kendram) of mentally challenged; CIMR, indeed, is a unique place to be.
However, CIMR is not merely a physical institution, situated in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala in the Asian country of India. CIMR is in a sense the "oasis" for the mentally challenged persons and their families. In the desert of human mind, CIMR's cohesiveness is astounding -- CIMR is thus the meeting ground of everything that relates to the mentally challenged.
This cohesive aspect found in all of CIMR is indeed the "call of life". During this period of "information revolution" in the history of mankind, one cannot but pay attention to the fact that the mentally challenged are to be treated as vast reservoirs of human intelligence locked up and waiting for their release. Just as a normal human cannot develop if there were not multiple sensory inputs which together bring about growth so too can the mentally challenged become "developed" human beings when they are provided multiple developmental environments. At CIMR this has become a reality.
(c)Central Institute on Mental Retardation, India.