Two people, with similar passion and matching thoughts, Sri V V Joseph and Dr Arun Kishore met each other at the doctor's clinic in 1994. The compadres identified each other and decided to put their brains together. Joseph Maash, as people call him with respect, was in the field of taking private tuitions and doing interventions at various schools in and around Thrissur. Dr Arun Kishore was the Associate Prof in Thrissur Medical College during that time. This meeting and the friendship grown between them led to the official formation of ALDI in an organised manner as it is today.

 

During 1996-98 Maash started interventions at Vivekodayam School with the strong support of the head master of that time, Sathar Sir. This improved the pass percentage of the school considerably. The insight from this, that timely interventions can make drastic changes in the overall performance of a school, gave him courage to go ahead with the School Adoption Programme.

 

1998-2000, the duo, Dr Kishore and Maash, took up the interventions in 10 schools at Kamakshi and Thangamani area in rural Idukki. This venture helped Maash realise the impact of developmental delay of Basic Skills in children and its consequences in learning. Discussion of this problem with Dr Arun Kishore made Maash learn about the problem in detail and led to the development of Adaptive & Preventive Curriculum - Joseph Approach which helps children to develop their basic skills before going to school. Today thousands of children around the world are benefitted by this and going ahead.

 

All these years, ALDI, which was started as a drop of water, got associated with many eminent personalities and educationists. Among them, Sriman Chitran Namboothirippadu, who was the retired ADPI became the first President of ALDI, Dr Arun Kishore the Secretary and Sri V V Joseph the Treasurer. Slowly ALDI gained its momentum and strength and started flowing like a river, deepening and widening day by day. 

 

Even though there were many educationists and professionals associated with ALDI, its all time strength was the parents and care takers. So the primary duty of ALDI was providing awareness about LD and other special needs to them. Once they got aware, they became ready to accept their children with differences and difficulties. But how to help their kids was still unknown to them. What is the remedy?, this was the single question asked by them. As a solution, ALDI Learning Centre was started in Nellankara. This helped many children. But the number of children coming for remediation increased considerably and the resource persons were found to be insufficient to meet the demand. This led to the learning that parents and care takers who spend the whole day with the child need training and they can help their children. This gave way for Beginners Training and later in 2004 Advance Trainings named as Formation Training at ALDI. 

 

In 2005, with Sri Kunhambu Nair, the present Secretary of ALDI, as the Chief Editor, a bi-monthly magazine, Know Your Child started circulation. It published the first hand experience of parents and articles related to the recent developments in the field of learning disability. 

 

From 2008 onwards, a cultural fest in the name Oruma was started which aimed at showcasing the talents of children keeping away all their differences, which aimed at including all our children and providing them a stage for presentation and participation. This gifted our children with a winning experience which meant a lot for them.  

 

In 2010, a school was opened at Kottayam in the name Life School aiming at inclusive education and for making a dream, of no child being kept away from formal schooling, come true. Here the adaptive and preventive curriculum was implemented in the pre school level and this made children go through normal higher education without much difficulties. 

 

Thus ALDI continued to gain approval in national and international levels and Maash thought of publishing a book that helps parents like a quick guide to identify various problems in their children and help them to support their kids. The first edition of the book, "Know Your Child" with an introductory chapter by Dr Arun Kishore was published in July 2010. 

 

In one of the training groups held in October 2014, the alarming increase in the rate of suicide among school children came up for discussion. Thus, to intervene in this social issue, a group named Changathi was formed. This group was able to render its service in hundreds of schools along Kerala and could actively listen to the problems among children and befriend them upholding their privacy. 

 

In 2019, aiming at the training for life skills and rehabilitation of children with special needs, Maash transformed an area of barren land in Vadakkanchery to a place that aimed at the holistic development of an individual and named it His Grace Ashramam. Camps, workshops, peace programmes, curriculum training and many more activities are organised in this campus throughout the year. 

 

Thus, the river formed from the droplet is now marking its waves and in 2020, while the whole world was hit by the deadly corona virus, ALDI came up with new projects for supporting parents online and providing life enrichment training for them. Gradually, when the pandemic is contained and the life regained its usual pace, and when children started going back to school, ALDI came up as a support for teachers and parents to help them heal the wounds and scars caused by the social media in young minds and is still pro actively participating in such services.

 

The ultimate aim of ALDI is inclusion and there should be kind hearts and supporting hands all around the world who can understand each suffering child and work with them to make their dreams come true.