AKSHAYEE SHETTY, SENSE KALEIDOSCOPES

“If they can’t learn the way we teach, then we teach the way they learn.”

I would like to introduce you to Akshayee Shetty Founder and Director of Sense Kaleidoscopes – A Unit of Ayathi Trust.

Akshayee, has closely known anxiety as a dyslexic teen and always sought comfort in the rustic smell of old papers, the comforting arms of her mother and in organizing, re-organizing and colour coding  her multi-level folders, subjects and tasks. In simple terms, Akshayee identifies with Autism.

I was alarmed when Akshayee told me about how the rates of autism have skyrocketed over the years. From an estimated 1 child in 3000 to just 1 in 150 kids today. In her opinion, wider criteria for diagnosis and better detection in today’s times might explain some of it but not an increase of this magnitude. Today, there are 10 million people with autism in India and it is the third most common developmental disorders growing rapidly across the globe.

Somewhere along her years as a student in India and Scotland, Akshayee decided she wanted to set up Ayathi trust, which is a progressive and sustainable multi-disciplinary contemporary arts organisation that trains with the creative arts to create professional artists and further supports them to thrive and sustain by creating a disability arts market and also a merchandise market. With an autism-specific arts curriculum, Akshayee hopes to break down the barriers that prevents autistic children from accessing creative / artistic activities.

When I asked Akshayee what some of her toughest challenges were, I expected to hear a story of an autistic child struggling to overcome some of his or her anxieties, but was taken aback to hear that, it is the parent community in India that requires an inter-dependent eco-system for their children and while they are in sync with this in theory, they are also mostly diverted in different ways due to many reasons one of it being a social stigma due to which efforts can seem counter-productive. To overcome this challenge, she is devising a model that will ensure that community comes first and not the individual.

On being asked what she has learned on this arduous but rewarding journey, Akshayee shared that her work is fuelled by her passion and is never dependent on another’s appreciation or criticism and so her advice to every woman reading this feature is to “find your passion, follow it fiercely, be led by your instincts, they will never fail you.”​