Oota Thota--guess what’s cooking
Pre Vocational Centre
"To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." - Mohandas K. Gandhi
Oota Thota’, which literally means food farm, is the pre-vocational training Centre for children and adults with special needs. The program uses creative arts processes to equip the children and adults with experiences of daily living in the kitchen, cooking and baking. It is the journey from the awareness to developing skills to mastery to eventually looking at prospects of earning a livelihood.
Our ‘thota’ is a space where the child/adult has the freedom to improvise, explore and create delights of their own. The ‘thota’ will offer a deep understanding and passing on secrets of the rich cooking expertise of generations past and present, from our grandma’s pickles to baking breads. The intent behind oota thota is to offer a child/adult a facilitated space where they grow produce in green patches across the centre, nurture its growth, harvest resources, buy vegetables , estimate and measure quantities, handle money, and will pack and sell .
Objectives of the centre:
- To offer a child a multisensory experience( smell, taste, touch , sight) and a medium to develop basic independent functioning skills.
- To develop fine and gross motor skills.
- o use the act of cooking to encourage socialization, communication, and the development of a leisure activity.
- To develop social dynamics that involve turn taking, lead and follow and attention skills.
- To explore learning language and math using “use your words” to describe foods, basic understanding of the journey of food from seed to tummy, categorizing foods, learning step by step and first-next-last concepts.
- To explore setting up a small cafeteria/ bakery that can be run and managed independently by the children.
Details of the program:
- The full day program is extended to a small group of 10 children/adults.
- Our thota is open to children and adults with special needs throughout the year.
- The program will be extended as an integrated learning space with the full-day program.
- The sessions will be conducted from Monday to Friday .
- Regular observations and feedback on the development of the child/adult will be shared.
- In addition to regular sessions, there will several group events and celebrations, outdoor trips and sessions by experts.
Details of the program:
- The program is open to 20 children and adults with special needs along with their families / care-givers.
- The sessions will be conducted on all Saturdays between 10am to 12pm.
- In addition to regular sessions, there will be several group events, celebrations, outdoor trips and overnighters on the campus.