Though I was practicing Law, I always wanted to serve the needy people in the rural area. I work in the drought-prone rural areas of Trichy, for the development of the rural poor, women, children, and Tribes. In 2009, when I visited a village to meet women, self-help groups, I saw a mentally retarded girl tied up to a pillar in front of her house. Her parents were daily wage workers and left her tied there as there was no one home to take care of her. She was standing with her skirt raised above her waist after soiling herself without knowing what to do since her mother had gone to work. The pathetic state of this girl motivated me to help Intellectually disabled children; hence I started “Sri Selliah Memorial Special School for Intellectully disabled  Children” a free school for the underpriviliged disabled children.

A baseline survey indicated that the parents of Intellectually disabled children were not willing to send their children to school. These children were left at home without proper care, food and clothes.  they are neglected. The villagers just lock up their children at home, they don’t know how to look after and care for these children.

That’s why we look after the children, bring them to the school and do all that we can do for them,
Another problem faced by us was that the parents of these children were daily wage earners and had to go to work daily and they found it difficult to send their children to school by public transport as they are not accustomed to traveling in buses. So we took up the responsibility of transporting these children back and forth from home to school free of cost. In a day, just to bring them, it's 460km up and down.

At the outset, we found it difficult to give rehabilitation and therapy to these children, as they were not used to going anywhere and mingling with others. Our special educators and the support team interacted with the children for months to make them feel comfortable at school. Now they are taught daily living skills, yoga, games, dance, singing, crafts, gardening, etc. They are given physiotherapy here.  There has been a lot of improvement after these children started coming to school. They can do things independently, without depending on others.

Since I am very much involved with the children, I am regularly contributing money for the development of these children from my personal fund. We also used to have some regular donors before COVID happened, a lot of friends used to give donations. But post it, since they are themselves struggling, the amount we used to receive also stopped, so I pooled in all
of my own money. Now I am finding it difficult to manage the wages of all the staff of the teaching and support team, transport, and medical care.

We are running this school with great difficulty for the sole reason to make these little angels lead a better life. If people don’t support the school, the children will be yet again left out on on the street or locked at home alone. These children have no other support. When we bring the children to the school, they are happy, they are healthy. We shouldn’t neglect the happiness of these children.