Celebrating abilities in disabilities

New Delhi: Fifty-seven organisations from all across India working with the disabled participated in a two-day ‘Abilities Mela’ on weekend to demonstrate the skills and talents of people suffering from variety of disabilities. Started in July 2004, this was the fourth such festival being organised in the national capital. However, it was for the first time that the National Trust, a statuary body with the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment – working for the welfare of people with autism, cerebral palsy, mental retardation and multiple disabilities – was organising it with support from companies like Cadbury, Nestle, ITC Welcome Group, IBM, Honeywell International, Tata Chemicals, PriceWaterhouse Coopers and Pantaloons among others. Poonam Natrajan, chairperson of the National Trust said that her organisation was now planning to replicate the festival in all state capitals of India. Explaining the objective behind holding such a festival she said the idea was not just to help them sell their products but also improve them so that they became more marketable. One of the biggest problems that the disabled face is of unemployment. Their employment rate both in public and private sector is abysmally low. More often than not, it is the mental block of the able-bodied people and not the disability of a person, which becomes an impediment when it comes to employing a disabled person. A job fair, to address the issue of disability and employment, was another feature of the festival. Ms Natrajan informed that 62 people in all appeared for interviews for jobs in companies and organisations like the IBM, Maurya Sheraton, Jindal Group, Handicap International, HelpAge India and few others. “They were quite impressed by some of our candidates. A few of them have even been short-listed,” she said ecstatically. According to the Census 2001, approximately 2.19 crore people i.e. 2.13% of the total population in India were with disabilities, about 75% of them living in rural areas. Ms Natrajan said: “Firstly, the definition of disability itself needs to be revised. Secondly, there is this stigma attached because of which people do not like to report disabled persons in the family. Even enumerators are also reluctant to pose this question before them so as not to embarrass the family. Clearly a better method of carrying out surveys needs to be devised.” Disputing the figures given by the Census of India or the National Sample Survey she said these were very conservative estimates. Her estimate is that no less than 4% to 6% population of India is with disabilities of one kind or the other. “May be even more, if you look at the figures that are reported from more developed countries. Like in Australia it is 14% and in the US it is 17%. Obviously there is some problem when it comes to India’s estimates,” she probed. Ms Natrajan also rued over the lack of schooling facilities for the disabled. “A lot of children with disabilities are out of schools. As it is, the special schools take care of only 2% of disabled children and even they do not prepare them for the skills that are required in the market.” She felt that although a lot had been achieved by way of various government schemes and civil society initiatives, there was still a plenty more to be done to make people with disabilities live a life of dignity.

User comments

There are no comments

 Printable version