TIGblogs - Anand Koti

Colorss Foundation : Volunteer Opportunity

At the end of the day it's a smile that matters to all and of course to 'self'. We are looking forward for young enthusiastic volunteers who love to fill different colours of life making others feel complete. Do you love Children? Do you like to play with them, teach them and give them a smile. If yes, the Colorss Foundation is waiting for you.

On-going Projects : Project Enhance and Project Iris

Project Enhance: Martial Arts for Better Mental Health

Project Enhance is to empower people with disabilities and make inclusion into mainstream life – with the help of karate training.

Mental health : Mental health is not just the absence of mental disorder. It is defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community.

Mental Disorder : Mental disorders are health conditions that are characterized by alterations in thinking, mood, or behavior (or some combination thereof) associated with distress and/or impaired functioning. This notion of a continuum sees mental health on one end as 'successful mental functioning' compared to mental illness on the other end as 'impaired functioning.'

Disability : Disability as defined by the World Health Organization

* A disability (resulting from an impairment) is a restriction or
* Lack of ability to perform an activity in the manner or
* Within the range considered normal for a human being

The United Nations
Impairment : Any loss of abnormality of psychological, or anatomical structure or function.

It’s important to include people with disability into mainstream life. Project Enhance will identify the skills. Try to develop them and henceforth organize vocational training for them. Because of stigma and discrimination we don’t want erosion and loss of innate skills.

Customized curriculum is designed in such a way that inclusion is possible and both the groups (able-bodied as well disabled) are able to understand each other.

Project Iris : CURRENCY DENOMINATOR Empowering the Visually Challenged Person

Developed and designed at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT G)

Colorss Foundation is behind the national launch of the developed device to empower visually impaired people, better known as 'Project Iris'. Project Iris is a device - a currency denomination identifier - that will empower visually impaired to identify different Indian currency.

It's simple, easy, cheap and mechanical device that will help them identify Indian Currency

Developed and designed at Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati (IIT G) this device has won many awards;

* Best engineering project nationwide
* Awarded gold medal at Dec 2006 Intel IRIS competition – a national level event by Confederation of Indian Industries (CII).
* Among top 5 in IDEAZ IIT Bombay, Pan IIT Alumni Business Idea competition
* Owing to the simplicity and social impact of the product, the interview was aired in third week of October 2007 by NDTV India’s Premier news channel in the program The Next Big Thing

We want volunteers who can help us with these two projects. Do email us asking for specific volunteer roles that you would like to lead based on your expertise. We value your expertise, hard work and time given. Volunteers who have the expertise in web site and graphic designing are required. Please email me at anand.koti@gmail.com

For Love,
Anand