Aakash - the boy with half a body but a heart full of positivity and aspirations !

Facts

• Aakash was born with a disability
• He has half a body & walks on his hands
• Aakash is in 2 nd year BCA at Modern College,Pune
• He rides a modified bike everywhere & is independent in thought & action
• He works for a travel agency once he is done with college & makes a small salary
• His dream is to go on to work in a software firm
• He speaks fairly good English & loves singing
• Most of all, he is always smiling & happy !

Can we say the same about ourselves?

I met Aakash through my friend Anita Iyer, founder of Ekansh Trust which works with people with disabilities. I met her a year back when I joined a social venture fund & was looking at ngos to fund. Since then she has amazed me with her passion, her boundless energy & creativity. Yes, she can be brutally direct at times but when you truly comprehend & appreciate the noble reasons behind her directness, you begin to love that about her too.

Anita's ngo works on fulfilling the aspirations of disabled people like Aakash - training them on soft skills, english, computers & most of all trying to place them in good companies. But most impressive is her work in sensitising corporates & children & trying to bring about a more inclusive approach and attitude, which are much needed !

lovely examples of Anita's work towards sensitising children without disabilities:

- a story book with 7 beautifully written short stories on disabled children, story telling sessions & discussions on these in school to sensitise our children

- lovely colouring pages showing disabled children in an inclusive environment

- teaching children sign language, my favourite are her workshops where she teaches the national anthem in sign language

How creative & unique is this !  

Aakash is being trained as a motivational speaker, I want to get him speaking engagements in corporates and colleges 

I also want Anita to teach inclusiveness through puppet shows

I need to have more schools conduct these workshops with her

Biggest gaps:

In my personal opinion and observation, what most ngos including Ekansh need as much as money is the following 

1. How to get more structured in their planning process & long term thinking so they can scale

2. Help with functional expertise - Basic accounts & taxation, database management

3. Capable leadership bandwidth (competency along with empathy)

4. Networks with corporates and colleges to help them scale

how can you help 
if you are a corporate - participate in the job fair for disabled on sep 6 (visit ekansh.org for more details), help me get speaking engagements for Aakash
help me get contacts in schools to do the sensitisation workshops - story telling and sign language sessions 

Most importantly give your time to Ekansh - most ngos need capability building, HR bandwidth & functional expertise as much as money, imagine then how many more Aakash's they can truly empower !!!