Updates from Voice of Specially Abled People

Apr 27 – Updates from Voice of Specially Abled People

Friends,
Here are key updates of the recent trip to Bharat (Apr 5 – Apr 13). Although short trip but was very productive. Here are the highlights to share with all of you.
1. Voice of SAP volunteers in Dev Bhoomi Dwarka have signed a “Sankalp Patra” with District collector on Apr 7, 36 points to make it India’s first Disable friendly district in multiple aspects. This template is ready and we can take to other districts with suitable updates
2. We met with the Parliament officer on Apr 13, who is finalizing the amendments to RPWD 2014 bill, who assured to include as many amendments as possible and very encouraging response. This is another major milestone achievement for our focused movement to Empower Specially Abled People of our country
3. On Apr 8, we met with H’ble CM of Gujarat, CM of Jharkhand along with Chief Secretary and Principle Secretary of Jharkhand on Apr 5. We presented template for state as what are possible initiatives that state can undertake to make the state disabled friendly. We have follow up action items with each CMO
4. We had excellent meetings with Shri Gehlot ji (Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment) and his team (Secretary, Joint Secretary, PS and others). We had steering committee meeting on “Accessible India Campaign“, something we started last year. We also discussed models of working together to drive the Empowerment agenda. He likes our efforts hence requested to work with him on Assistive Technology solutions, inviting the US companies to India, work on proposals with other ministries as disability is a multi ministerial subject and our volunteers have lots of thought leadership for inclusive, special education, transportation solutions, preventable disabilities etc.
5. MoS for I&B, Shri Rathore ji extremely supportive and he agrees that his ministry has a significantly important role for the social transformation needed in our country. We will work on promoting inspiring stories through Door Darshan. We are requested to provide concept note on short term, long term tasks, messaging and overall plan
6. We met with Chairperson of National Women Commission – Smt Lalitha Kumarmangalam ji, who is our great supporter and we discussed possible joint efforts including serial on Door Darshan to promote inspiring stories of Women with Disabilities, for which initial discussions already started with concerned secretary in Door Darshan and our volunteers have already identified 4 such inspiring individuals
7. We also met several others incl FICCI executives and working on next steps of webinar/seminar now.
8. We were invited to attend the Sewa Sangam – 3 days conference (Apr 4-6) of all Sewa organizations of Bharat. This event happens every 5 years and gave great opportunity to learn how deeply, thousands of volunteers are working on hundreds of Sewa projects. Truly inspiring. Our Voice of SAP initiative was also shared with Respected Shri Krishna Gopal ji, Manya Shri Datta treya ji, Respected Shri Suhas Rao ji, Respected Shri Shyam Parande ji and other inspiring leaders to carry on volunteer / Sewa work for humanity.