Commitment
No learning can happen without dedicated staff. Teachers of the visually impaired require sensitivity, imagination and vision, in the broader sense of the word. They simplify pedagogy, innovate and adapt each lesson to suit each child's unique abilities.
The student-teacher ratio of ten to one allows the teachers to get to know and love each child individually. Teachers often become role models and many students return to join the School as faculty members having completed their education elsewhere.
Supporting the School's trained teachers is a team of talented and committed volunteers, many of whom have helped at the School for decades, seeing the children through from inception at the Montessori class to their final exams and beyond. Volunteers contribute their preferred expertise and skills, ranging from ophthalmic surgery and paediatric medicine to counselling, music, reading, weaving, yoga and swimming.
What Next? Where Next?
Blindness does not mean life floundering in the dark. Thousands of boys have passed through the Happy Home in the past century. Many have flourished and gone on to colleges and universities and become high achievers as academics, lawyers, civil servants, musicians and composers. Several have completed their graduation and returned to the School as teachers.
At the Happy Home, children discover inner vision and, with patience, guidance and encouragement, ways to illuminate their lives.
This school is an inspirational model of its kind. It shines brightly, like a beacon in the darkness, thanks to the boys who are taught to light their lamps and to hold them high so that others can see the world anew and afresh.