“Accessibility allows us to tap into everyone’s potential.” – Debra Ruh
Accessibility can be understood as “ the practice of making information, activities, and/or environments sensible, meaningful, and usable for as many people as possible.” Everyone in society benefits from accessibility. It also enhances social integration and independence.
Voice of Specially-Abled People (VOSAP) is an organization that has inclusivity as its core value and believes that accessibility is the key to achieve equality and fairness while having an integrated approach towards the Empowerment of Specially Abled People.
VOSAP with its strong leadership and advocacy initiated and presented Vision 2020 for the Specially Abled People of India. The Founder of Voice of SAP, Shri Pranav Desai is the Champion that conceptualized ‘Accessible India Campaign’ that was launched on Dec 3, 2015, by the Honorable Prime minister India Shri Narendra Modi and the Govt. of India.
At VOSAP, we believe that we all are temporarily abled and at some point of life we may have to face Disability in one or the other form, either it be incurred by Accident or due to ageing. It is necessary for all the people to understand that Accessibility is not something that is only going to help or make life of a person with Disability better but rather it would help the entire society.
Voice of SAP understands how crucial it is to have an inclusive and accessible society, and leveraging technology, VOSAP has been working towards making accessibility a reality in multiple ways including its own digital tool, VOSAP mobile app.
VOSAP mobile app is an excellent example of public participation for greater good. This app brings information about accessibility at the same time enables the users to contribute in real-time issues. It also offers citizens an all-encompassing Public Utility App.
With Volunteer base of 11,000+ People across the globe, VOSAP has successfully gathered data of 19,400+ places rated for Accessibility. VOSAP Youth Volunteers are mapping public places, school and university campuses across the US and their findings indicate only 30% Accessibility in the surveys. To increase these numbers, motivating stakeholders is a very crucial task.
To further this goal of inclusivity in physical as well as digital spaces, VOSAP is promoting compliance with the ‘Americans with Disabilities act’ (ADA) Section 508 which adopts the mission of ensuring Digital Accessibility by the corporations, software development by IT professionals. VOSAP is reaching out and spreading the message of Digital Accessibility among various corporations, promoting the usage of the websites and mobile apps in companies that are equipped with accessibility features.
To achieve the goals of ‘Accessible India Campaign’ VOSAP is motivating the Volunteers, leaders in community to adopt the mission in various states and have launched campaigns like ‘Rajasthan Har Ek Ke Liye’, ‘Noida Har Ek Ke Liye‘, etc to encourage people to think and act for accessibility, rate public places on VOSAP Mobile app and raise awareness.
It is very important for all of us to understand that Accessibility Efforts undertaken today, are the seeds we are sowing for an inclusive society in Future. So Join us in this mission of making this world an inclusive and accessible place to help 1 B+ of the Global Population.
Here are few ideas as how can you help!
- Download VOSAP app (iOS, Android) and do rating of your school, college, neighborhood as advocate of accessibility, unlocking potential of millions!
- Take a pledge to achieve the accessibility goals and inspire others to take pledges by inviting them to our website or VOSAP mobile app to create “crowdsourced demand” for accessibility of key places
- Take lead and help make your school/college accessible with the help of Alumni friends and community members.