Apr - Jun 2000
Bala Vidyalaya - School for Young Deaf Children - Kavitha Rajagopalan,
In the front hallway of a two-storey building in Shastri Nagar, Chennai, a plaque etched with names of the school's alumni followed by abbreviations of their personal success stories (BE, B.Tech, B.Arch, CA, MSc, MBA, MA), glints proudly in the early morning sun. To the students of Bala Vidyalaya, a school for hearing-impaired infants, toddlers and small children, the plaque promises a fullness incomprehensible to outsiders, for these names belong to the alumni of this school who have integrated fruitfully into the hearing world.
Founded in 1969 by Menaka Parthsarathy and Saraswathi Narayanaswamy, the school's primary aim is to develop language skills in hearing-impaired students to the functional level of children with normal hearing. To this end, Bala Vidyalaya started a unique programme for children below six years of age, incorporating one-on-one interaction with infants, activity-based comprehension sessions, round-the-clock parent involvement and other educational tools. The modus operandi is simple: constant communication and spoken interaction with small children, making use of their residual hearing with specially-designed hearing aids that they can carry in their pockets and use with headphones. Their success has been phenomenal, with over 250 (nearly 90%) of the alumni smoothly integrating into mainstream schools.
With the Assistance to Grassroots Projects scheme of the Consulate General of Japan, the school has been able to construct a diagnostic centre, with an audiologist, audiometry and hearing-aid fitting facilities, a research and development cell, and a counselling and guidance hall. The school's early-strike approach to disability singles it out as a truly unique institution, and its success has spawned several other similar institutions nationwide. Most of these institutions are staffed by teachers trained at Bala Vidyalaya....more

“I want my job!” - The Ability Team,
People with disabilities, more often than not, have difficulties in accessing vocational training or higher education. This, coupled with the negative attitude of several potential employers, adds to their misery. The ceaseless work of some NGOs notwithstanding, all that has been done is surface deep.
A glance at some bare facts will give us a clearer picture:
1. About 5-6% of India's population, that is, about 60 million people in our country are affected by disability. Hence disability is definitely an issue that cannot be side-tracked any more.
2. As early as 1959, the Government of India set up the first Special Employment Exchange for the Physically Disabled in Bombay. In 1977, the Government of India announced a 3% reservation in jobs, but only for the “C” & “D” category posts in the Govt. and Public Sector. The Ministry of Labour also set up 23 Special Employment Exchanges for the placement of disabled persons within the country. Besides this, there are 55 special cells in regular employment exchanges. Then, there are the 17 vocational training centres established in various states. According to the 1991 National Sample Survey, there were, at that time, 7 million disabled people who were qualified for employment! With the PWD Act 1995, legislation provided a framework for implementation of, among other things, activities related to employment and the responsibilities of the state. Unfortunately, five years later, this has still not gained momentum. For the corporate sector, the Disability Act 1995 mandates incentives for those employers who ensure that at least 5% of their workforce is composed of persons with disabilities. However, the incentives have not yet been spelt out. Despite this, we have been able to place only 1% of our disabled people in jobs. This could probably be explained to a large extent, by the negative mindset of employers who harbour a preconceived notion that disabled people are dependent people who cannot contribute towards the functioning of the organisation. Fact is, there is hardly any job which cannot be performed by a person who has some form of disability.
Article 41 of the Constitution of India specifies that all citizens have equal right to work and education. Equal opportunity can be truly equal, when everyone can avail of the benefits equally. It is not just equality of opportunity but equity of opportunity that must be ensured.
Only a handful of organisations working in the field of disability provide training in industry related skills. The focus is more on art, craft making, etc. There is also a growing need for placement services of disabled people: Ways of bringing together an open-minded employer and a disabled person with the required qualification...more

Dr. Sruti Mohapatra
Describe yourself in five words.
Spontaneous, perfectionist, cheerful, hard-working, happy-go-lucky.
If you were to invent a gadget, what would it be?
A magic eraser – to erase all that's sad in history!
If your fairy godmother came to you saying she would grant you just one wish, what would you wish for?
Wishes are for whispering only to godmother. Pssst…
How would you like to be remembered?
My dad's daughter, my mom's twitter, my sib's loving sister, my best friend's laughter...more

Bollywood and Women with Disabilities - Dr. Meenu Bhambani,
An increasing number of beauty pageants are held even in remote and smaller towns of India. This process has aggravated the marginalisation of disabled women as they are considered neither physically beautiful nor sexually marketable. Their disability makes them lose the quality of looked-at-ness. It also renders them inefficient, incapable, unwanted and undesirable. However hard they may try, disabled women never hold any attraction for anybody in society.
The 70s were the transitional period and one found quite a few disabled women in lead roles in Bollywood – established stars being the pioneers of change. Severe impairment was however still the forte of “character” actresses. They are no doubt loved, but no effort is made to help them to become self-sufficient. There were four different films on disabled women and men in the same decade. For the first time a mainstream movie like Imtihaan showed the disability of a female protagonist which interfered with the quality of being admired and hence rendering her undesirable. A disabled woman [on the whole] cannot be average, moderate, independent or an underachiever. She is also good to look at or she has no place in the mainstream cinema. ...more

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