Our Story
Utkal Handicapped Welfare Organisation is a State level Organisation dedicated for the cause of disability rehabilitation.
The journey of the Organisation begins with a strong commitment of a highly motivated young boy who gave up his well positioned government job and dedicated himself to social service. An incident impacted his life, when he once tried to help a poor Visually Impaired child for his schooling. He approached many nearby formal schools for admission of the child. But the school authorities showed their inability to take admission of that blind child by showing many unjustified reasons. That was the turning point in his life paving way a change. He gave up his government job and joined Teachers Training in Special Education Course for the Visually Impaired and started learning to become a Special Educator only to facilitate education to the rural needy blind children. He is none other than Shri Prafulla Kumar Panda, the Founder of Utkal Handicapped Welfare Organisation.
Looking at his ambitious drive, the eminent personality of Odisha Philosopher, Poet, Lawyer, Politician and founder father of various educational institutions: Padmashree Dr. Prasanna Patashani supported him to march ahead in the endeavor. Other prominent educationists, rehabilitation experts and social activists like Shri Sirish Chandra Das formerAsst.Director SCERT, Shri Prananath Parija, Social Activist Shri Surya Narayan Behera, Former Director Horticulture Department and a group of like-minded volunteers patronized to establish Utkal Handicapped Welfare Organisation as a Not for Profit Organisation which was registered under Society Registration Act 1860 with an objective to provide free education to poor and marginalised Children with Disabilities. After necessary Legal Affiliations, ground breaking of the brain child “Utkal Handicapped Welfare Organisation” finally took place on Utkal Divas in the year 1993. A Special School namely “Louis Braille School for the Blind” started functioning on the same day at Bhubaneswar with only three children, of which the said poor child was special. The aim was to impart primary and secondary level formal education with a view to mitigate the barriers in easy access to education.
Thereafter, another special school namely Rajdhani School for the Blind was established in the same year 1993 to impart special education in Hearing Impairment field. It was the core policy and focus of the Organisation to adopt the Best Practices in teaching methods and management over and above the mandatory standards, that really displayed positive outcomes making this Organisation distinct.
The present strength of CwD students is more than 160. SSEPD Department, Govt. of Odisha is providing Grant in Aid support for maintaining the special schools.
After a sustained and successful cruise of around 25 years, it was felt necessary to create human resources in form of Special Educators to cater the need of special education as well as inclusive education, Teachers Training Institutes were established in 2018 in Hearing Impairment and Visual Impairment categories named a s Sainath Institute of Special Education and Sri Jagannath Institute of Special Education respectively duly approved by Rehabilitation Council of India, New Delhi. The present intake capacity is 35 Teacher Trainees per batch per course.
Further a Clinical and Therapeutic Service Centre has been established in the name of Utkal Bharati Centre for Therapeutic Services since 2019 providing vertical and horizontal services as required for the PwDs. Besides all of the above, Utkal Handicapped Welfare Organisation, as its core objective of disability rehabilitation, gives priority to Advocacy, Awareness at community level to empower the PwDs.
The journey of more than three decades witnessed a visible changes in the disability rehabilitation scenario that has been able to give a smile to many CwDs. It gives immense satisfaction to see their aspirations turning into reality in the real world mainstream society.
Our Team
Management Team
Teaching Experts
Technical Experts
Administrative and Support Team
Social Workers and Volunteers
Our Activities
Special Schools
Special Education Teacher Training Institutes
Clinical and Therapeutic Services
Community Based Activities