That First Experience..

 Everyone has thought of a fixed path in life—A good career in a fortune 500 company, money, and an early retirement to start something new. Volunteering comes into picture only after retirement for most of us.

There is no time for anything else in our busy life. As it is our Social life, traveling, family, Job, keep us occupied so volunteering is not even part of the equation. Leisure time is spent meeting with friends, eating and drinking, and shopping. Social responsibility is left to the corporate companies with big pockets and resources,rights? 

This belief changed when I was struggling to get a job. As the famous saying goes “An empty mind is a devil’s workshop”, I decided to volunteer for namesake, when an old friend told me about some computer literacy project with IITB. 

I had decided in the beginning that if it became too difficult I would give some excuse and leave. Difficult situations can be handled only in jobs where there is incentive of promotion, money, and recognition which clearly is not the case with volunteering.

So charged with that notion in mind I went to the nearest Municipal (BMC) School with a colleague. After observing the surroundings and from the conversation with the Head Master-HM, I could infer that school had only two computers for a classroom of 40 students!  My resolution strengthened that it was waste of my time. I remembered all the conversations that I used to have with my colleagues, families, relatives, friends that it was hopeless to have any kind of expectation from the Government. We are mere citizens and not superheroes. So I realized I couldn’t change a thing, and nobody could either Best course of action would be to leave and start in another school.

But when one of my fellow volunteers decided to continue even with two computers, I was surprised. “Nothing is impossible” and “I’m possible” are just quotes for text books we read, I knew in my gut.

But disagreeing in public has never been my style, so armed with my colleague’s enthusiasm we decided to call two students at a time and teach one topic spending approximately 10mins with them.

We started with naming different components of a computer, followed by how to switch on and off a computer, with finally how to open, close, and save a Libre Office word document. As we continued teaching more and more students, we observed some were faster and some were slower in learning, but the common thread was that all were eager to gain knowledge. Most of the students didn’t have access to computers; few who did were trying to remember their forgotten computer class conducted a year ago.

As we progressed further, the students who had finished learning would stand and observe the next batch of students and help their classmates who got stuck on a particular step. This continued with other students too. As we finished for the day, they asked us the most important question “when were we coming back”. When we replied next week, they thought it would be too late. They were so eager to learn more. Their enthusiasm was infectious!

Their feedback and bright faces made us realized that sometimes achievement in terms of helping others is greater than monetary compensation or promotions. The happiness that you feel makes you realize that words of the old wise men are true-‘Happiness cannot be measured with money’ 

We cannot always wait for the system to change; sometimes we also have to take a step in that direction.

   We may not be able to bring a drastic change in the political scenario, but we can bring a change into the life of others by that one hour of volunteer work. It may take time and it does take because a seed cannot grow into a tree within few days. It takes time to nurture it, but it’s the end result that is fascinating.

With this, I hope all my fellow friends also give one hour of their time to volunteer. Let’s not wait for retirement or that feeling of making a change to perform such acts.

---The author of the article JZ has earned her Engineering degree and MBA from Mumbai University and still continues to volunteer on weekends along with her current job.

Inclusive Education --The answer to disability

"The only disability in life is a bad attitude"- said author, Scoot Hamilton.CACR and ADAPT together want to sensitize people about disability and make the city more disabled friendly.

CACR has partnered with ADAPT (Abled Disabled All People Together).ADAPT was formerly known as 'The Spastic Society Of India' . The CEO and Trustee of ADAPT has written about their future and current initiatives with CACR.

CACR was instrumental to help ADAPT to plan and initiate the 'sensitization program' for the Municipal school Principals of Mumbai, India.

Over to Varsha "

Education and Accessibility

The Right to Education Act (RTE) makes it mandatory for schools to take in children with disabilities. As a result, the government programmes of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) are now including children with special needs.

There are however challenges, the main one being access. Access does not pertain only to architectural barriers that prevent persons from disability from participating in mainstream life. It also refers to access to education, to the curriculum, to employment.

The Persons with Disability Act mandates that the State create a barrier free environment for person with disabilities and make special provision of the integration of persons with disabilities into the social mainstream. These include:

1. ramps in public buildings;
2. adaptation of toilets for wheel chair users;
3. braille symbols and auditory signals in elevators or lifts;
4. ramps in hospitals, primary health centers and other medical care and rehabilitation institutions.

On the other hand, regular teachers and other professionals are not trained in inclusive education. Since the ‘How’ of inclusion has still not been worked out, teachers find it difficult to deal with differences in the classroom. The Training and Pedagogy department of ADAPT, set up by Founder Chairperson, Dr. Mithu Alur in 1978 as there were no trained professionals to teach children with multiple disabilities, has been conducting training programme in the field of education, disability, inclusion in education and the community for various stake holders and has trained over two thousand teachers, Principals, Master Trainers, therapists and parents.

We have trained regular teachers from schools under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan in inclusive education. Programmes have also been held for the Municipal Corporations of Greater Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane, Kalyan, Dombivali and Meera Bhayender.

We are therefore very happy to partner the H West Federation and the Citizens Association for Child Rights-CACR to spread awareness about inclusive education and make the H-West Ward a ‘disabled-friendly ward’.  

Future Plans

A half day sensitization programme for the Principals of 1150 schools run by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is planned in April 2014. This we hope is the first step to including children with disabilities into their schools so that the Right to Education can be implemented and no child is left out of school.

Simultaneously, we hope to initiate the campaign for equal access undertaken by The ADAPT Rights Group (ARG), set up by Malini Chib, Trustee, Acting CEO, disabled advocate and author, ‘One little Finger’ entitled ‘Mumbai Rising for Disability Access: We the People Too’

A group of young persons with and without disability will now conduct access audits of public buildings along with students of architecture and advise on the ways in which they may be made more accessible to those with physical disabilities or limitations.

A beginning was made at the MUST Run when establishments in Bandra that had incorporated ramps at their entrances were felicitated. Unfortunately very few turned up to accept this acknowledgement but we are hopeful that as awareness on this spreads, we will have many more supporters.

Once again, this is an appeal to all to join us in our campaign of making first H Ward and then all of Mumbai accessible. "

Varsha_ADAPT