Prakhyata Abhinand Charitable Trust (PACT India)

Prakhyata Abhinand Charitable Trust (PACT) is a disability and rehabilitation organisation, an NGO, that serves the needs of orphaned, abandoned and surrendered (OAS) children with special needs in Child Care Institutions (CCI) and various Adoption Agencies (AA). Currently, we operate in parts of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Our goal is to improve the adoption rates of children with special needs (CwSN) so the children may lead joyful and fulfilling lives with their families. As per 2011 data, the adoption rate of CwSN in India was below 0.4%. This will be achieved through cost-effective rehabilitation care for CwSN in CCI and AA. The unique capabilities of CwSN often go unnoticed in CCI and are not further developed. As a result, the children lose the opportunity to get adopted. This is a huge loss of talent and skills for the country and humankind as well. Without access to CCI, many OAS children turn into anti-social elements. CwSN, with limited capabilities, may go into severe and long-lasting depression, anxiety and worsened states of disability. Prospective parents too fear the possibility of lifelong dependence of these children, the lack of facilities and infrastructure to support their growth, treatment costs and peer pressure. Every child has the right to a loving and caring family, to be nurtured into a capable individual. As a start-up NGO PACT INDIA is in a very nascent stage, out immediate objective is to develop a self-sustaining model so we can continue this much-needed work in the special needs domain. We are in the process of developing rehabilitation clinics, respite care centres (daycare services for adults and children with disability) and centres of assistance (selling/renting orthotic and adaptive devices, wheelchairs, and other support; creating accessible environments in homes, CCI, and other locations at low cost) across districts in our targeted states – to generate revenue to support our initiatives.