Notebooks Production Unit

Swami Vivekananda firmly believed that “the only way of getting our divine nature manifested is by helping others to do the same. If there is inequality in nature, still there must be equal chance for all - or if greater for some and for some less - the weaker should be given more chance than the strong”.

It was in this pretext that Sri Ramakrishna Mission Vidyalaya, Coimbatore, instituted a workshop in 1992 in order to train, and thus employ, the disabled people into different activites involved in the making of a notebook. The idea behind was to bring these masses into the main stream, creatively use their services, and convert  all their work into a challenge as well as an opportunity for inner growth, thus bringing much joy and fulfillment to their lives. The workshop was officially inaugurated on 2nd Oct, 1992, on the occasion of Gandhi Jayanti, with the total strength of seven workers. Over the years, several batches of the disabled lot have been trained and assisted for self employment.

Today, the workshop has the total strenght of 24 workers, with R Nagendran, R Ravichandran, C Palanisamy and V Dhandapani as the instructors of various departments. Their proud team of binders consists of G.Sundarajan, R.Selvamani(both visually impaired), K.Jeganathan, P.Moorthy, S.Mariappan, M.Maruthasalam and B.Parthiban (all blind). Crafting, paper-cutting, and pasting of notebooks  is done by I. Sirajuthan and P. Dinakaran (both being deaf and dumb). They are assisted by R.Gopal, K.Srinivasan and T.Srinivasan(all  suffering from hearing Impairment). Then there is a brigade of trainers as well, who work tirelessly on the thermal press to compress the books, pin them, cover them neatly and also prepare them for dispatch. This team consists of K.Boopathi, R.Parthiban, R.Saravanan and K.Manikandan (all mentally challenged).

A. Thavimani (Physically Handicapped) arranges the papers from the rim, shapes up the notebooks and gives them the final touches. He is assisted by a team of dedicated workers such as S.Sampath, E.Marimuthu and C.Venkataraman. They also assist other members, as and when required.

The notebooks prepared were sold to educational institutions in Tamil Nadu.  More than 90% of the persons working in this unit are disabled.  This unit has proved that disabled persons can work on par with normal persons and the quality of the notebooks is in no way inferior to those prepared by normal persons.  A summary of note books prepared and sold to various institutions in and around Coimbatore is given below: