Surya’s hasn’t been the smoothest of rides so far. But with every passing day, he is trying and succeeding. In a big blow, Surya’s parents were shocked to find out their child was deaf at a tender age of just one and a half years. Faced with the looming prospect of living with such disability and no center or place to refer to for hearing impairment, his parents were left helpless and clueless about how to help the child.

Initially Surya went to a regular school in his village where he did not show any progress. His parents then enrolled him in a special school in Miriyalguda. Even there, he failed to live up to expectations and showed little improvement.

The family barely managed to make ends meet, with his father working as a LIC agent and his mother working as an assistant teacher to supplement the family income.

But hope didn’t fade away. They were advised to get their son enrolled in Ashray Akruti school, which took special care and helped children with hearing impairment. But for this, the family had to shift to Hyderabad from Nalgonda district.

The decision was made. Surya joined Ashray-Akruti’s School in July 2007. Eight years down the line in 2015, Surya’s has scripted a better life for himself. Today, he is studying in 9th standard at Ashray-Akruti School.

Surya has shown steady improvement since he joined the school. He was provided with hearing aids. The project team helped him with speech therapy, auditory training and academic training. He is now able to communicate in simple sentences and also showing good improvement in academics. He now confidently looks forward to becoming a self-reliant person in life. That’s a huge leap of faith, in himself.

*This project is a part of Ashray Akruti High School program supported by Microsoft.