Praveena, a ninth standard student at the Government Residential School for Visually Challenged Girls, started learning yoga at the start of the current academic year. “In a few months, it has improved my memory and retention power,” she says.
She is not the only one to have benefited from the introduction of yoga in Andhra Pradesh’s lone residential school for visually challenged girl children.
Many of her schoolmates who used to suffer from menstruation-related and other health problems are finding life easier after they started practising yoga. “As we are visually challenged, it was a little difficult to do the asanas when the training programme was launched. But once we learnt the technique, it became easy. Yoga has given us new confidence to excel,” said Ramya, another student.
Vanajakshi, the yoga instructor, feels that yoga is a good avenue for blind children to improve their health.
“Yes, it was initially quite tough to teach the various postures. But once they got it, there was no going back. In fact, when yoga was introduced in the school a few months ago, the response was not so good. But over time, all the students began to show interest. Now it has become a daily routine,” she told The Hindu.
Useful asanas
The asanas found to be most helpful by the students included padmasana, vajrasana, sirshasana and mayurasana.
The sea-facing school with classes from the first to tenth standard was established in 1987, and at present has 71 students. Besides yoga, music is taught. In the last 21 years, 190 students have passed out, 110 of them in first class.
“Most of our students have managed to secure government jobs. Some of them are now bank officers, teachers and ministerial staff,” said principal M. Maheshwara Reddy. The school students bagged 14 medals in the events conducted by the Andhra Pradesh government on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
The school got a facelift following its adoption by the pharmaceutical company, Divi’s Laboratories, under its corporate social responsibility (CSR) program.
“Ever since we took up the school under CSR, we have spent more than ₹70 lakh to enable the students to do well in their professions after completing their studies. We are also funding the students’ higher education,” Divi’s Laboratories Director Divi Madhusudhana Rao said.