Voice of Specially Abled People (VOSAP) received its accreditation from UN COSP, joining 350 other NGOs from around the world, dedicated to promote UN CRPD goals of independent living of 1 BN+ people.
VOSAP has 12,000+ volunteers, registered with VOSAP mobile app, who are working towards empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (PwD), inspiring EVERYONE to take volunteer pledge for taking inclusive actions, decisions, pursuing ISR (Individual Social Responsibility) towards Divyang jan.
During 3 days long 11th, Conference of State Parties (COSP) to the CRPD, at United Nations Headquarters in New York, on June 14th, Voice of SAP presented its model, strategies and results of its programs executed in India in last 4 years. During the side event at COSP11, VOSAP explained its approach of Empowerment for creating Inclusive society for PwD and how member countries can also adopt this “Developing Country” model to benefit from this approach.
Collective actions by leaders and volunteers of VOSAP has yielded huge social impact in India. Several real examples with data was presented the session. VOSAP’s key message is that “Everyone is Temporarily Abled” so people should not ignore the needs and rights of Divyang jan instead create accessible and inclusive society.
When everyone embraces their ISR, disability rights movement can achieve its goals much faster. CRPD (Convention of Rights of Persons with Disabilities) is a great treaty where 177-member states have signed and after 12 years, now that structural reforms are in place in many countries, next logical step in CRPD movement should be to create mass movement so that everyone does something per their ability and role in society towards inclusion of PwD.
Pranav Desai, founder of VOSAP explained the mobile app and how its features such as “Take Volunteer Pledge” can accelerate entire mass movement, people’s involvement by creating local communities, globally. Volunteers can map out accessibility of key buildings in the communities to start advocacy for upgrading them for accessibility with increased awareness and inspired actions of engineers, planners, govt. officers and business community.
The side event was supported by Permanent Mission of India (PMI) at the UN, whose first officer Ms Paulomi Tripathi introduced VOSAP and speaker Pranav Desai and Secretary of Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Govt. of India, Ms Shakuntala Gamlin. She also explained India’s policy, series of reforms and commitment of H’ble PM Shri Narendra Modi towards Empowerment of Specially Abled People. Secretary Ms Shakuntala Gamlin concluded the session by providing insights of outcomes of several initiatives in last 4 years by Govt. of India including in the areas of sports and addressing rising issues in mental health by setting up world class Mental Health Research Institute.
Participants such as Dy Minister for Disabilities from Tanzania, ILO representative, WHO representative and several other countries took keen interest in the model and VOSAP mobile app as a technology driven transformation tool for creating inclusive society in their countries.
