आरभ्यते नखलु विघ्नभयेन नीचै: |
प्रारभ्य विघ्नविहता विस्मरन्ति मध्या: ||
विघ्ने: पुन: पुनरपि प्रतिहन्यमाना: |
प्रारभ्य चोत्तमजना न परित्यजन्ति ||
Inferior men do not start a work due to fear of obstacles. Medium men start their work, but leave the work whenever they get difficulty. Exceptionally good people start their work, and continue doing working even if there is series of obstacles in their way. Shanti Raghvan and her team are among those “Exceptionally Good” people, the driving force of EnAble India!
EnAble India was founded in 1999 by software engineers Shanti Raghavan &Dipesh Sutariya, who have known disability at close quarters within their family. After having successfully rehabilitated their loved one, they are now using their know-how & insights to empower others. Shanti and Dipesh bring a professional approach to social service, drawing from years of experience in the corporate world.
Exceptionally Good: EnAble India!
EnAble India is working for the empowerment of various kinds of SAPs, and gets them employed. Its speciality is in making those SAPs work for Better India!! Yes, so far we might have seen SAPs getting help from the society but here the case is reversed and more than 10,000 hours of volunteering by SAPs who have volunteered for the Better India!!
EnAble India’s students with disability have been given a larger vision for themselves. During training, they are encouraged to think about their livelihood in the context of India and the world. By working well to be independent and by helping society, they become better Indians. They start becoming the change that they want to see in the world. “We in EnAble India believe that you can only help yourself if you help others”
Some of the highlights of Volunteering services of SAP candidates of EnAble India:
Killing two birds with one stone:
How do you solve the problem of food wastage by hotels and food shortage in old age homes and orphanages? Simple! EnAble India’s candidates with physical disability convinced hotels to give away the excess food to the homes.
Today 9 hotels in Bangalore are supplying food to these old age homes, orphanages and ashrams. What an idea!
One idea hoping to change an entire village:
Place: Guttepalya near Nelamangala, Karnataka
Mission: Candidates with physical disability wanting to spread awareness and bring change in one village.
Result: 30 houses made aware about personal hygiene, clean environment, protection against diseases, legal awareness, and women and girl child empowerment.
Reaching out to flood victims in Uttarakhand:
June 2013: Red letter day for India. Who can forget the floods in Uttarakhand, devastating the entire state?
Reaction: EnAble India’s candidates with vision impairment decided to reach out to relief victims
Mission: Collecting relief items by going door-to-door
Result: While successfully collecting grains, clothes and other relief items, candidates learnt to successfully convince people with timely intervention, empathy and patience.
Bringing light and paving the way in Koramangala, Bangalore:
Problem: No streetlights, no pavements and more accidents
Place: Venkatapura and Ejipura Road, Koramangala in Bangalore
Mission: EnAble India’s candidates with vision impairment wanted to bring light and pave the way for the sighted person on the road
Result: Successfully convinced BBMP (Bangalore Municipality) to install lights and repair pavements. EnAble India’s candidates learnt to write in Kannada to officially send a letter to the BBMP, and this little effort managed to sway a lot of decisions.
Achievement:Reduced accidents, reduced crime and increased safety.
Additional bonus: Pradeep, EnAble India’s candidate with vision impairment, went back to his hometown and got streetlights installed, after finding out about a chain snatching incident. Now people, especially women, are able to go out after dark.
Working towards a cleaner Bangalore:
The garbage dumping near St. Martin’s High School in Magadi Road takes place on a daily basis where heaps of garbage would be burnt next to the school during lunch hours. The students at that time would be out of the school premises and become ill by inhaling the smoke. With the students falling ill, the headmaster had reported to BBMP but did not see any changes.
EnAble India’s team of 6 candidates with vision impairment decided to take this up as a community project and wanted to spread awareness on garbage dumping. They conducted a survey on garbage bins and disposal bags on almost every house in the area, around 40 houses.
Reaching out to Kanpur villages:
The Team: EnAble India’s candidates with physical disability from our Kanpur training with AITH (Dr.Ambedkar Institute of Technology for the Handicapped)
The Plan: Spreading awareness on disability, education and careers to the surrounding villages in Kanpur
The People: Rural men, women and children participating and getting to know useful information
The Impact: NGOs and government departments in the villages were impressed with our candidates – their confidence, professionalism, communication skills and commitment
The Achievement: Increased awareness and many NGOs seeking EnAble India collaboration after seeing EnAble India’s candidates work!
Don’t wait for inclusion – include yourself!
EnAble India’s candidates with vision impairment developed an accessible menu card using Braille – A “See Change” for one restaurant in Koramangala. This is the first step in self-advocacy and inclusion, with many more restaurants to include this menu.
One May ask, is this an NGO to help SAPs? Or an NGO of SAPs who helps the society? It is both! Let’s see its Mission, Vision and Goals!
EnAble India’s MISSION
VISION
Organizations in the private and public sector, barring a few, are unaware that persons with disability too possess the talent and commitment to be part of a productive workforce. There is also little awareness about the fact that the disabled can work efficiently in a variety of functions with the help of simple technology and other assistive aids . EnAble India works towards making people with disabilities a part of every corporate hiring plan.
Families, the society at large and the government together need to create a strong supportive environment for persons with disability to help them grow into confident, independent and productive individuals. EnAble India is committed to dispelling both sympathy and apathy towards the disabled and building awareness for the creation of a supportive environment.
GOALS
- To empower the disabled: visually, physically and hearing impaired.
- To enable the rehabilitation of people with disabilities through supplemental education, extensive training and providing assistive aids designed for daily living, education and for the work place.
- To enable employment for people with disabilities. This will help people with disabilities fulfil their potential by being part of the workforce and enjoying successful jobs and careers.
- To build the next generation of people with disabilities who are confident, assertive, smart and independent.
What EnAble India is all about:
** Evangelist, creator and provider of the world class computer training for people with vision impairment
– 200+ candidates with vision impairment trained every year
** Researcher of new job roles for persons with disability with innovative workplace solutions
– Work with 400+ companies, average 15-20 new roles identified and 4 new innovative workplace solutions identified annually.
** Worked on capacity building for trainers and organisations, leveraging technology solutions
– 40+ trainers and institution partners enabled annually
** Developed large volumes of content and tools to help standardise and scale the awareness and development programmes
– Content development for computer literacy for people with vision impairment, employability training across disability and inclusion and diversity enabling modules created for employers.
– Developed unique training and development methodology with the core belief of transforming an
individual.
** Pioneers in creating and conducting programmes for inclusion of persons with disability in PSU and
government organisations
– Partnered with State Bank of India, identified 47 different tasks, enabled over 40 SBI employees with vision impairment and 20 employees with hearing impairment. Coaching over 20 trainers of SBI
** Successfully developed and implemented the First-of-its kind model for placement cell for the state of Karnataka.
One of the few organisations in the world working for various kinds of disabilities, for their economic independence and dignity via wage employment, self employment and entrepreneur models.
– Placed over 2000+ persons with various disabilities, across 26 sectors and 20 locations across the country.
Every Rs. 1 of inflow average of Rs. 6.55 of economic impact created
मूलं भुजंगै: शिखरं विहंगै: ज्ञन्ब्स्प;ज्ञन्ब्स्प; शाखां प्लवंगै: कुसुमानि भॄंगै: |
आश्चर्यमेतत् खलुचन्दनस्य ज्ञन्ब्स्प;ज्ञन्ब्स्प; परोपकाराय सतां विभूतय: ||
Roots of the sandalwood tree form a shelter for the snakes, on it’s top birds take rest, on it’s branches monkeys are playing and one can find bee’s on it’s flowers. Really, the ultimate aim of the good (‘sajjan’) people is to offer helping hands to others (‘paropkAr’)!
There is a lot to say about EnAble India, and I hope you have curiosity to know more, but its quiet difficult to tell everything about such an organization in one article… See you in part-2!!
