There is always place for more love and service. Our brothers in Middle East share their experience:

OMAN:

Since end 2009 the Special Children Group has been rendering seva to children with special needs and their families. It initially started with a single child with autism and over a period of seven years, by Bhagawan’s Grace, has grown to be able to serve many children with various difficulties.

This Seva is initiated by alumni and rendered by the alumni and their  families,  devotees  and ‘non-devotees’, who believe in the SAI principle of Service With Love,  For  Love  and By Love. Weekly interactions are conducted with the children where various skills like life skills, activities of daily living, vision therapy exercises, pre vocational and vocational skills, gross and fine motor skills, oral motor skills, yoga, music therapy etc. are taught to the children. Every Friday, alumni meet in a school. Children are engaged by volunteers and taught various  skills. Some volunteers engage the parents. Parents unwind and also discuss their issues with other parents. Volunteers also invite professionals as and when possible. In addition they have online google group. This seva is not restricted to Friday sessions. It is almost a daily seva in many aspects

This Seva also serves as a platform wherein one parent can share their experiences with other parents and help each other. A 24X7 guidance channel is also made available for the parents when required. The volunteers also make various learning aids, communication aids and social stories and provide them to the parents needing such material. Assistance is also provided to the needy parents, both in terms of finance (where possible) as well as for procurement of various aids and support requirements. The aids are custom made to help the child cope in various aspects. These aids range from special blankets (purchased or custom ordered), social stories (custom made), tools for gross and fine motor skills (custom made), visual schedules, different types of cards etc

Annual sports and fun festival are conducted for the children, along with their parents and siblings. A special cultural program is conducted with the children with special needs every year to commemorate World Autism Awareness Day. This program of service to support the children with Special Needs has become popular that the group has also supported leading international school in Oman to set up their Special Education Wing. The children are exposed to various festival events and are taken to visit malls, parks, museums and amusement parks.

In addition to the service in Oman, the group organized professionals to visit and provide guidance to homes for the children with special needs in Coimbatore and Kannur. The group prepared 5,000+ education aids in a span of 48 hours to assist a leading institution in Chennai which had lost all the education aids during the floods.

When the Seva was initially started, there was no member who had any professional background or qualification in this field. Bhagawan blessed this seva during early 2010 at Puttaparthi and assured HIS Grace and ever since the group has been able to render seva to the satisfaction of children, parents and professionals. Over the years, Bhagawan has inspired and sent many professionals who have willingly and at no cost, offered their guidance to the group. Around 8 alumni families are currently involved in this wonderful seva.

UAE

There are around 60 alumni families residing in UAE. Most of these alumni associate themselves with the the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organizations – UAE to undertake service activities within UAE.

The UAE law is stringent when it comes to undertaking charitable service activities. In spite of these hurdles the alumni get together monthly – once or twice – to undertake service activities like distribution of food, provisions, general care items to the labourers at camps and distribution of buttermilk and snacks at the construction sites during the lunch break which serves as a huge relief during the peak summer heat which hovers around 45-50 degrees.

These alumni were also instrumental in arranging the very first overseas Samarpan, which was attended by around 600 Sai devotees across UAE. It is astonishing how His Love is reaching to far corners of the world through His students. May He continue to inspire us to be part of His work.