brilliant one. we should also appreciate the school teachers who must have
also played an important role in motivating and encouraging her. is it
possible to get her email address
thanks
----- Original Message -----
From: "avinash shahi" <[email protected]>
To: "george" <[email protected]>; "neha saigal" <[email protected]>;
"binni" <[email protected]>; "darpan" <[email protected]>; "saurav"
<[email protected]>; "Shabina Bano" <[email protected]>; "claire"
<[email protected]>; "geeta" <[email protected]>; "sushant"
<[email protected]>; "deepti" <[email protected]>; "amelia"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2013 10:06 PM
Subject: [AI] Blind, but certainly not without a vision
brilliant. This lady deserves kudos.
If you are one of the recipients, congratulations, and,Ya, all the
best with your visionary mission.
And shouldn't we all read and remember PWD act and UNCRPD act as
Ramayan, Bible, Guru Granth Saheb and Quran?Smiles.
Not joking very serious, impact will be beyond expectations.
Report Begins
http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/1861706/report-blind-but-certainly-not-without-a-vision
Tuesday, Jul 16, 2013, 10:13 IST | Place: Bangalore | Agency: DNA
Up close with Ashwini Angadi, who arrived in the city on Monday, after
being honoured by the UN in New York.
Ashwini's parents are elated after she returned home from New York,
where she was honoured with the Youth Courage Award for Education by
the United Nations. - A Veeramani/DNA
She walks into the room quietly and with measured grace. Her parents
are elated with joy and pride that their daughter suddenly seems to be
the toast of the town, with every newspaper and television channel
clamoring to get her interview.
After all, Ashwini Angadi, an outspoken 24-year-old with a visual
impairment has only just arrived from New York, having received the
Youth Courage Award for Education by the United Nations at its Youth
Take Over event.
Ashwini is as unassuming and welcoming as the small house she shares
with her family. Though it was her efforts with Cheshire Disability
Trust, where she spearheaded several programmes to help the disabled,
that earned her the UN’s recognition, her own journey, starting from
her childhood, is just as inspiring.
The childhood years
Angadi was born in a village near Bellari district with visual
impairment. Her father, who was an autorickshaw driver, decided to
relocate the family to Bangalore, seeking better employment
opportunities.
“My parents enrolled me in Shree Ramana Maharishi Academy for the
Blind where I studied in residential school for 11 years and my life
was idyllic because I was among others who were just like me and I was
in my own world,” she explains.
Start of the crusade
Angadi’s real problems began when she had to acclimatise to the
outside world when she started attending college at NMRKV.
“I enrolled in NMKRV for pre-university and I would say that adjusting
to regular college was frustrating because my classmates and teachers
were not used to someone like me and I was not used to them. So, I
started addressing my classmates during assemblies and educated them
about my life and made some great friends in the process,” she says.
However, she was confronted by a host of other challenges like not
having braille study material and had to rely exclusively on the notes
that she took down during lectures to get through examinations. It was
more of the same story during graduation years, she adds.
Eschewing a cushy IT job for social work after graduation, Angadi was
offered a job in the IT sector but fate intervened in the form of
Mahesh Chandrasekar, part of Leonard Cheshire NGO, who contacted her
to take part in a conference in Switzerland.
But Angadi was upset that she could not personally attend the
conference as she did not get her passport. Nevertheless, Chandrasekar
got her to attend the programme through teleconferencing and also put
her on the job of interviewing people with disabilities to prepare a
report.
“When I spoke to all those people, I knew that I had to do my own part
in helping them because I knew I could empower them,” she says. And it
was thus she came to work for Young Voices, a part of Leonard Cheshire
which she was already a member of.
Relentless efforts
Angadi fights for the rights of disabled through this group, using the
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as a
charter.”We raise our voices to the government and we solve issues in
India,” she states plainly.
Ashwini’s relentless efforts have seen her visit various colleges and
sensitise students on issues and challenges faced by people living
with disability. She has also organised several health checkups.
“I see the world as a place that is somewhat helpful, but in five
years, I see a world where people with disabilities seamlessly
integrate into the society. A world where the government just does not
announce programmes and policies for the heck of it but actually
implement them. I don’t want us to be treated with sympathy and I want
every girl who is disabled to be educated,” says Ashwini.
Ashwini’s vision
Make the infrastructure better for the disabled, get screen readers in
laptops and computers in schools and colleges so that all children
have access to the same material and stop denying basic amenities like
debit cards to people living with disability.
“People who aren’t disabled, constantly lose their debit cards. Yet,
if they can have them, why can’t we!” she sa
--
Avinash Shahi
MPhil Research Scholar
Centre for the Study of Law and Governance
Jawaharlal Nehru University
New Delhi India
Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of
mobile phones / Tabs on:
http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in
Search for old postings at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
To unsubscribe send a message to
[email protected]
with the subject unsubscribe.
To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please
visit the list home page at
http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
Disclaimer:
1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the
person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity;
2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails
sent through this mailing list..
Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of
mobile phones / Tabs on:
http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in
Search for old postings at:
http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
To unsubscribe send a message to
[email protected]
with the subject unsubscribe.
To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please
visit the list home page at
http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
Disclaimer:
1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the
person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity;
2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent
through this mailing list..
