My Journey To and In WinVinaya Foundation 

Kasthuri 

I am Kasthuri, having a master’s degree in computer science. I am fun loving, like to be socially responsible (I try to go green in all possible ways), a volunteer at a nearby lake with a public lake revival team, and love connecting with people. 

My teaching journey started right after I finished my master’s, when I unexpectedly got an offer to be a lecturer at a college. 

I respected all my teachers greatly, and I believed that they make a bigger impact in the society. I couldn’t think of myself in such a prominent and impactful position. I joined the post with lots of hesitation. Since then, I have stayed in the same profession, and I love what I do.  

I admire the profession and understand that it is one that comes with great responsibility.   

Not everyone enjoys or likes their job, but I do. I am indeed lucky. 

I have been teaching various subjects to people of different age groups, at different places.  

As a school teacher, I loved the innocence of the children, the way they love the teacher as a second mother, showing their unconditional love. 

As a college lecturer, I enjoyed teaching the youth, who make the atmosphere cool and fun.  

As a trainer at WinVinaya Foundation, I am facing a very different and unique experience. I could suddenly see different communities within our own society, and I was ashamed that I had not been aware of them before.  

Persons with Disabilities… PwD…Never before had I taken a step ahead to know about them.  

Never thought about what the different disabilities are… What are their special abilities, what are their challenges, what are the challenges of the parents, what is it that the society needs to know and how to support them… 

They don’t need the sympathy or empathy from the society. What do you think they expect?  

Just inclusion. 

Now, I have friends with different disabilities. I am very glad that I am part of their community, trying to learn about them, and their challenges and support them.  

Let me come to the interesting part of my journey with WVF. 

WinVinaya Foundation is a team of wonderful, joy filled people who work towards a noble mission: Enabling an inclusive society. We, as a team at WVF, train graduates with different disabilities and support them to get into the right career. Our team includes persons with Hearing and Speech Impairment, and Visual impairment. Yes, I am proud to say that our team is an inclusive team. 

A day at WinVinaya for me starts at 9 am with the standup meeting, during which we discuss about the previous day’s work, the plan for the current day, concerns, and challenges. Then the training sessions start as per the timetable, from 9:30 am to 1 pm. We have our lunch time till 2 pm, with hot food provided by WVF and with loads of fun with colleagues. This is followed by practical sessions/  follow ups on the progress of the candidates/ planning the training. My work also involves in preparing the documents which are used as learning materials, conducting mock interviews, career counselling, various meetings and discussions with the co-ordinators, co-trainers and our leaders, which help improve our work. 

I train people with various disabilities like hearing and speech impairment, hard of hearing, low vision, locomotor disability, cerebral palsy, hemophilia and more. 

Each candidate has a story. Every one of them faced a lot of challenges in life, right from coming out of their homes and facing the outside world, completing their studies, getting support from the family and the society, till they come to this position.  

The primary language of deaf is sign language. Most of the deaf candidates have grown in families which do not encourage them to use sign language, as the society wouldn’t respect them. They are not able to communicate or share their thoughts even with their own family.  They had been taught through voice, which they cannot follow or understand.  We can compare their learning difficulty with this situation: Let us say that I have been forced to learn Greek language without any audio or voice, and I am now supposed to continue my education and communicate with everyone in Greek.  

They studied and lived with hearing people, and they are expected to communicate only in English and their mother tongue. 

Learning English is important for them to get into corporate jobs, but it is a big challenge for them. Take these two words – eat, eating – they both mean the same action. Similarly, deaf people think that suppose and support mean the same, because they have no clue of the sounds of different words. This should give you an understanding of the struggles they face to communicate in their everyday lives. 

Training the candidates includes 1. Teaching the concepts of the subject, 2. Training them in the interview perspective – giving mock interviews.

Teaching the complete deaf: I know sign language to some extent. My friend Sharon helps me interpreting my voice into sign language. Sometimes, when she is not available, I try to sign with my knowledge which is challenging at the same time interesting. The deaf people need a lot of real world examples to understand concepts in sign language.  

Teaching the partially deaf (who can understand through lip reading and hear with hearing aid to some extent): They need the other person to talk slowly and clearly.  They prefer face to face interaction or Video Interaction. 

Teaching candidates with low vision: They need the letters on the board to be written in bigger size. They also use the zoom in feature on their mobile or laptop. 

Teaching candidates with Cerebral Palsy (whose speech is not clear, and their challenge is writing or typing faster): When they ask a question or doubt, we have to really tune our ears and sometimes request them to repeat in order to understand. Patience is needed – both for the teacher and the student. 

I really appreciate their efforts to meet the standards set by persons without disabilities.

Now let’s see the details of training the candidates in the interview perspective, which is done through mock interviews.  

First, the interviewer should have the mindset to be inclusive.  

For the deaf candidates, questions must be asked by typing/writing or in sign language. The interviewer should wait till the candidates respond by typing/writing or interpreted by a sign language interpreter. 

For the partial deaf candidates, a face-to-face interview or video interview is required to lip read, and slow and clear voice is required to understand. 

For the candidates with cerebral palsy, much patience is needed to understand their speech and wait until they write/type in their possible speed. 

These are the requirements for offline training. When it comes to online training for the same, it becomes slightly more challenging but not impossible. 

This path of work gives me happiness and satisfaction, knowing that I am learning a lot and at the same time contributing to the society. 

A big salute to the leaders of WinVinaya, who have taken up this mission and have given me the opportunity to work with them. My journey with WinVinaya has been a great and special experience for me. 

I hope, with WinVinaya’s vision and mission, we can see the world becoming more and more inclusive. 

Thank You.