Social Work Department

Cloth Bank Vs Food Bank

Cloth Bank V/s Food Bank, is a project initiated by Fr.Davis Chiramel. It is all about collecting reusable clothes which can’t be used by us, but can be used by others and reselling it. These clothes have got high demand among people who cannot afford to buy costly dresses. For example, wedding dresses, gowns, sarees etc which are used only once and cost even upto Rs.50,000 are sold just for Rs.500 and the profit earned is directly given to Kerala Jail account as part of ‘Hunger Hunt campaign ‘which is then used to supply food to 25,500 inmates in various Orphanages and Old age homes across Kerala. For food supplied from jail, uniformity and high quality can be ensured. Fourth branch of cloth bank was opened in Jewel Autism Centre on 4 October 2021. The project has received immense support as people from different parts of world are sending clothes via cargo.

Blossom

Blossom is a project initiated with the aim of mainstreaming differently abled individuals by employing them in various departments of Jewel Autism Centre. When the ‘differently abled’ category strives to earn a living, this project will be a breakthrough to spread awareness on importance of bringing up people from this category into employment sector. Mr. Royins Jose, a differently abled candidate with diagnosis of Mental Retardation was employed in Cloth Bank with support of a supervisor. This was featured in all leading news channels like Asianet News, Manorama Online, Reporter TV, News 18 and Amrita TV.

AUTISM FOUNDATION OF INDIA TRUST

Autism Foundation of India (286/IV/2019) is a trust designed to implement programs for transforming children affected with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other disorders so as to enable them to come back to normal life. It also aim in extending social outreach programs as a commitment to society by doing various projects. Fr. Davis Chiramel, a catholic priest by profession has made his priesthood a secular service to channel his vision and mission of serving the poor in the society irrespective of cast and creed. He is commonly known as the Kidney Priest and is a familiar personality for every Keralite. He is the patron and director for Autism Foundation of India Trust. He also patrons social work department of Jewel Autism Centre. Under his guidance, several social projects were initiated in the department.

The trust members are:
Davis Chiramel
Jameson Samuel
Jency Blesson

Major Social outreach programs initiated under trust are:

‘I Challenge Plastic Bottle’
‘Teach and Train’
Cloth Bank V/s Food Bank
Blossom

Teach and Train
Teach and train is the long term vision of our honorable director Dr. Jameson Samuel. The main aim of this project is to mainstream children with Autism and the major target group of this project is regular schools.
Activities of teach and train are:
To organize awareness classes on Autism and other childhood disorders among youth in various colleges and in society.
Conducting awareness class for parents and mainstream school teachers to alleviate the stigma about autism and related conditions.
Provide hands on hands training to regular school teachers on how to handle the behavior of an autistic kid in the mainstream school. So the teachers can easily handle kids with autism.
Kids with autism have issues with behavior and communication. This can be reduced only through regular interaction with school children in mainstream schools. So the ultimate aim of this project is the enrollment of differently able kids in mainstream schools.
Jewel Autism Centre is proud to say that in the year 2019 we successfully enrolled………………… students in regular schools. As an extension to this project, we started an initiative to conduct free assessments to academically backward students of Government schools and provide intervention based on their assessment reports.

I Challenge Plastic Bottle
‘I challenge plastic bottle’ is a recycling campaign for plastic bottles which was initiated by Fr. Davis Chirammel, Chairman of Kidney Federation of India on 02 October 2018 across Kerala. Our Joint director Dr. Jency Blesson is one of the fire core team members.
The social work department of the Jewel Autism Centre coordinated various activities all over Kerala and ensured that the project is completed on a targeted basis. ‘I challenge plastic bottle’ mainly targets school children as they are the future of our nation. The main objective of this project is “Inculcating a habit in schoolchildren to properly dispose of plastic bottles and plastic wastes and not to throw them in public places and water bodies”.
We covered more than 200 schools and colleges in Kottayam, Alappuzha, Ernakulam, and Kollam districts.
After the successful implementation of the School campaign, we started a new venture of Beach Campaign 2020. Through this initiative, we intend to spread awareness about alarming beach pollution.