Four decades of education, two decades of inclusion.

The institution's journey began with Pritish Chandra Dutta — known locally as a father to the poor and a freedom fighter — and his wife, the social worker Smt. Arti Dutta. Together they founded Dr. Annie Besant Hr. Sec. School in 1985, named for Annie Besant, who though foreign-born devoted herself to Indian society.

The school was started to educate children from middle-class families. Seeing the children's interest in music and dance, the Dr. Annie Besant Sangeet Academy followed in 2000, affiliated to Prayag Sangeet Samiti, Allahabad. Cultural programmes since then have given students a stage and a live audience.

Then some children with significant intellectual disabilities came to the school to study. The institution treated it as a challenge rather than a problem, and in 2002 began a new journey for the welfare of children with intellectual disabilities. Finding those children in the surrounding society turned out to be the hardest part.

From 2001, door-to-door surveys began in interior villages — and they have continued every year since. In 2003 the organisation received affiliation from the Department of Social Justice and was registered as a special school. The first learners were Ruchita Bareley, Roshni Sharma, Priyanka Parey and Sheelu Sarathe; their parents, as the organisation puts it, jolted a society that had been taught to hide disability.

The purpose has not changed since: to help learners become self-dependent, to bring them into the mainstream of social life, and to provide rehabilitation — work the organisation describes as going on round the clock.