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| Guest Profiles |
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| Episode Summary: People With Disabilities |
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| Living with autism: a parent’s story |
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| Enabling change |
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| One simple step to increase our GDP. |
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| Talking words: How Orca helps the blind |
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| Guest Profiles |
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For 11-year-old Shreya Chaturvedi, the light of her life is her mother Pratibha. This single mother’s one regret is that because she works for a living, she is unable to devote more time to Shreya’s development. After being rejected by several mainstream schools, she came across Akshay Pratishthan (http://akshaypratishthan.org/ ), an experiment in inclusion and inclusive education which was set up in 1998 and is today a rehabilitation centre supporting more than 450 children. Apart from education, Akshay Pratishthan is well known for its vocational training, medical care and employment opportunities. Shreya says she loves her school, and it shows in a cheerful, bright girl who, while she wishes she could walk, nevertheless accepts herself with a smile and a determination that is catching.
Sai Prasad Vishwanathan decided that he would show the world that a youngster who found it difficult to get on a bus in India could go out and take to the skies. One of the few to have been given a full research fellowship in the field of Computer Architecture and Chip Design at the University of Wisconsin in the US, Sai Prasad says, “As I sit back and look at the past, I must write of a one particular feeling that stands out. The feeling of the surprise and shock that people felt, the discouragement I faced, the fear that was put in and the sympathy I faced, when I first announced to people around me that, in spite of my disability, I will go to the US all alone and study there for my MS programme.”
Krishnakant Mane advocates the use of open knowledge resources free software applications, not only for the visually challenged, but also for the underprivileged. “Free software is not all about cost but about the freedom which every individual is bound to get,” he says. “One cannot have ease and flexibility with proprietary software because most source codes are inaccessible to the general public. And as the impaired people fall in the lowest rung of socio-economic hierarchy, they are unable to take recourse to the software even if they are resourceful and relevant.”
The doors of educational institutions are closed to children like Aditya Birmani, Aarush Bhat and Akash Gupta - whose parents are seeking to give them education on the same terms as non-disabled children, but who come up against the barriers of prejudice and obduracy. When the children come from families which do not have the financial or social weight to even try knocking on these barriers, it is even worse. Educated parents such as Charu Gupta turn to home-schooling their children, but Mohammad Kaif, Nirmala and Kariappa are just three of the countless children who remain deprived of education because of the double whammy of being disabled as well as underprivileged. They are some of the invisible children who need a helping hand, which comes from the many non-governmental organizations working in the field of inclusive education and rights of persons with disabilities. One such is Never-The-Less, an initiative by the Fourth Wave Foundation that is working on bringing out-of-school disabled children into education, and is trying to get some of the children featured in Satyamev Jayate their right to education.
Fourth Wave Foundation’s effort towards inclusion on “Nanagu Shaale” works on the creation of a model of including children with special needs into mainstream government schools, to ensure effective learning through a multi stakeholder ship model. It is the aim of “Nanagu Shaale” to enable children with disabilities to make significant transition from segregated to inclusive education, thereby facilitating the empowerment of the disabled and enabling their integration into mainstream society. This project is built on a community participation model involving all segments of society and working in close association with the government to address the larger issue of education for all disabled children.
Dr Uma Tuli, founder of Amar Jyoti (www.amarjyotirehab.org ), first realized the extent of difficulties that persons with disabilities face, when she was teaching in a college in 1965 and her 21-year-old brother met with an accident which necessitated an amputation. He eventually went to the US and got a job there, and she noted that there, a person with disability is considered a person, whereas in India he or she is just an object of pity or sympathy. Massive strides have been made since then, but it is still a long road to get Indian society to a point where persons with disability are an integral part of the social weave.
Seema Tuli has been a special education teacher for many years and is today the Principal of Amar Jyoti Schoool. A thirst for knowledge keeps her up to date with the latest teaching methodologies and other progress in the field of education. Her interest in cultural, sports and vocational activities has been instrumental in helping her students develop all-round personalities.
Nisha Lobo captured the hearts of her adoptive parents, David and Dr Aloma Lobo, the moment they saw her. The connection they felt with her was echoed in the bond which Nisha struck with her new siblings, and in fact she touches everyone who sees her with the pure joy of life that emanates from her. Keenly interested in art and craft, Nisha is also learning several languages, the latest being Spanish. Dr Aloma Lobo has been involved with the placement of abandoned children since she and her husband David, a businessman, adopted a child almost 23 years ago. She has co-authored the Penguin Guide to Adoption in India and is chairperson of the Voluntary Coordinating Agency, Karnataka. The Lobos have fostered many children until they found adoptive homes, and they say that every child they encounter teaches them something new about seeing the world through a child’s eyes. Nisha just succeeds in taking that further – one of her recent achievements was walking the ramp at a fashion show in her school, receiving a rousing ovation.
Ketan Kothari is Regional Programme Development Advisor for Social Inclusion in India at Sightsavers (http://www.sightsaversindia.in), an international development organization working with partners to eliminate avoidable blindness and promote equality of opportunity for disabled people. Ketan has a master’s degree in political science and an MBA in Social Entrepreneurship, and advocacy has always been a major part of his professional life.
Javed Abidi is the director of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People in India, and the founder of the Disability Rights Group. He works to make legislative rights and economic opportunities a reality for the disabled in India,, organizing disability groups across thematic, geographic, and language barriers to set up an informed national lobby.
Dr Rajendra Johar sees his life as having two sections with an interval – before and after he was bedridden. He says his life now is more interesting as he is able to do more. Sure enough, he founded Family of Disabled (http://familyofdisabled.org), which enables disabled people with low socio-economic status to earn their livelihood, promotes quality education among children, encourages artists and artisans with disabilities to showcase their talent, and creates awareness on issues related to disability.
When Capt (Retd) Kamaljeet Singh Brar wanted to set up a company producing e-learning solutions, he also designed the company itself to be disabled friendly. To the extent that a majority of Designmate’s employees, about 270, in fact, are people with disabilities. Capt Brar says with evident delight that inclusion has benefited the company (www.designmate.com) as much as the employees.
Joginder Saluja didn’t let polio stop him from doing what he wanted to do. Barred from using a gym because of his disability, he went and started his own, Workout Wonders in New Delhi. Joginder is a national level weightlifter and has won the Mr India title in body-building and power lifting. An Arts graduate, he advises the University Grants Commission on how to make Delhi University more disabled-friendly.
Salauddin Pasha’s family used to prescribe medicine for people with disabilities, but he says his calling went in a different direction – that of therapy through dance and theatre. The founder of Ability Unlimited (www.abilityunlimited.com) notes with regret that the classical dance tradition in India specifically excludes persons with disabilities, and he has set out to prove that dance is not something that people with disabilities can “also do”. In Ability Unlimited productions, the people perform the way any non-disabled person would, and taking it further, the crutches and wheelchairs perform too, becoming sometimes props and sometimes dancers themselves. In this way, Salauddin hopes, society’s perceptions too will change.
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