Note to ECOSOC
It has been five years since the SDGs have been announced by the United Nations. While there have been noticeable improvements by certain areas of the global community, a lot more should be done over the next decade to achieve those goals.
Voice of Specially Abled People (VOSAP) believes that if we can provide accessibility, we can directly accelerate five of the SDGs outright.
VOSAP wants to operate as the catalyst for the world to become an accessible and inclusive place for Persons with Disabilities (PwD). VOSAP’s transformative mobile app is the tool that has empowered 8,400+ “Change-Makers” by providing information and creating crowd-sourced demand for accessibility and inclusion.
The Journey of a Girl in Mumbai
If we take the life journey of a girl in Mumbai, having mobility impairment, this will become more clear. As she grows up, a fundamental thing she’ll need is ability to get to school. This requires building accessible schools and cities for commuting.
Having received the quality education(4) required to be a functional part of our society, she will be part of a community with one less inequality(10) and she’ll be able to work towards her own economic security i.e. no poverty(1) and no hunger(2). In her career, along with her peers, she’ll be able to work on ways big and small to bring humanity one step forward. In the next decade, with more accessible infrastructure, communities, the world will witness decent work and economic growth(8) because of the mainstreaming of millions of PwD.
Tactically speaking, VOSAP is building a robust Building Accessibility Database, easily available on map in VOSAP mobile application. That journey of the girl to be able to easily go out of her home to any other building requires a knowledge of where she is able to go without accessibility barriers. VOSAP app aims to provide that. Our work has helped India implement the “Accessible India Campaign”. Additionally, VoSAP has provided thousands of assistive devices, wheelchairs to enable PwD.
A Note for the Future
Before we aim to fix a problem, we must identify and measure where the problems exist. VOSAP aims to see a world where that girl’s life is not just a good possibility, but a high probability. We are hopeful that the knowledge we are amassing can raise even more awareness, encourage accessible infrastructure development to help anyone whether they’re in Nairobi, Mumbai, Naples, or Lima.
