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 !!!

Salman (Bajrangi Bhaijan) or Shubham (Indias latest million dollar arm) ??

Salman (Bajrangi Bhaijan) or Shubham  (Indias latest million dollar arm)?

There was a time 15 years back when I was studying in the US, the modern Indians from India and ABCDs (American born Desis) would look down on Bollywood movies. You were given a dirty look if you said you enjoy Bollywood movies, now its different – ABCDs love Bollywood movies and its

cool to watch Bollywood movies and visit India!

Do you think its wishful thinking if I hope that 15 years from today….

It will be as important to read and comment on charity blogs as fashion blogs?

News will give as much coverage to farmer suicides as Salmans tweets on Yakub

CSR departments in corporates will be as structured, organized and well staffed as other key functional departments?

People will give time rather than just money to social causes?

Buildings will boast not just of global designers but of disability – friendly ramps and toilets?

Parents will give as much time to building social sensitivity in kids as they invest in teaching them tennis or piano?

Not sure, time will tell but I am a numbers and evidence based person, so what gives me a ray of hope are the articles I have been reading in the news.

Sample set – last 2 weeks alone, articles covered (links to most articles below available on my website, www.indiacharity.org)

·      Ira Singhal changes rules and clears UPSC

Gist – Sad story - even after clearing her exam in 2011, government refused to appoint her due to curved spine disability, ridiculously citing that she would not be able to lift heavy packages!! After intense struggle, she got a court ruling in her favour.

·      Beno Zephine becomes first blind IFS officer

Gist – Happy story of how tremendous love from parents, school and others can make a blind girl content, confident and aspire for the stars.

·      Milkmans son Subham from a village in Haryana at 10 wins world golf series at San Diego

Gist – with no resources and just learning from you tube videos a 7 year old boy caught the attention of Golf Foundation of India that then believed in him, invested in him and trained him to win a world championship.

·      Intelligent and thoughtful analysis on farmers suicide in maharashtra

Gist – heartbreaking to read how Maharashtra topped 2014 general suicide chart, loan waivers or compensating the family of the deceased is all that gets coverage rather than intelligent analysis of farming methods and other reforms

·      Suhel Seths article on creating disable friendly buildings

·      Rehabilitaion efforts for people impacted by Malin landslide a year back

In addition to above, I am happy to see movies like Baba Amte in Marathi, Million dollar arm in English, Hawa Hawaii in Hindi …..
My favourite by far is KOMAL - an animated video for our children on child abuse, which has won several awards (10 min must see video on you tube/ my website has the link)

All of this is a beginning but we truly have “miles to go before we sleep……”

An evening with the blind boys orchestra

Agenda

·      I invited 10 blind boys to sing for us. 

·      I invited Anita from Ekansh ngo to help our kids interact with the blind boys by asking them questions on their favorite sport, actor, hobby…

·      She also taught our kids how to spell their names in sign language.

The good

·      Life is so busy, full of classes, social commitments. In spite of that several mothers made the effort to bring or send their kids for a charity event and we had a good turnout, 40 attendees (around 25 kids)

·      Kids hopefully learned that you can nurture your talent inspite of disabilities, where there is a will there is a way

·      Kids hopefully learned how difficult sign language is and how they take simple gifts for granted - like the gift to see and talk

The shockers

·      Inability of our kids to sit in one place for more than 15 minutes without looking bored and distracted, I pad culture and constantly “being on the go” with a packed schedule of classes has given them all attention deficit disorder

·      Inability to enjoy a good voice or good music, just wanting the latest/ cool Bollywood songs in order to have a good time

·      Inability of our kids to touch/ hug the blind boys while taking a picture, where is the empathy?

·      Inability to come up with enough questions to ask the blind boys, the genuine desire to get to know them better (must point out here that the girls were much kinder and more willing to interact than the boys, moms of boys need to work harder!)

·      When a sweet boy was asking simple questions like “what is your weight” the others made fun of him saying “he is calling THEM fat” is everything so trivial?  Do 9 year olds not have the maturity to be serious at times? In the US 9 year olds are helping their parents wash dishes, are we not treating our kids enough as adults?

So what is the solution? There isn’t one single solution. Key is to keep exposing them to variety of situations and use specific examples like today s event to teach them some values and keep reinforcing those examples time and again. Just like we plan classes for their physical wellness, we need to schedule time for their mental wellness which is going to be a serious issue for this coming gen !

Visit to Desai Eye Hospital in pune

My visit to HV Desai eye hospital in Pune today along with my son Vir

• ·      2500 surgeries per month, only 28% paid for by patients,
• ·      0.03% post surgery complications,
• ·      state of the art devices,
• ·      world class buildings,
• ·      recognized by global institutes as a center of excellence,
• ·      teaching school for post grad and PHD students,
• .    one of the largest eye banks
• ·      daily camps in remote places, patients carried by their buses for treatment all the way to Pune with free stay and food along with their treatment

and most importantly a team of passionate doctors  guided by a board of  wise corporate honchos – the perfect recipe for a charitable eye hospital.

Mr Nitin Desai the man and inspiration behind all this and his childhood friend Mr Pandya (the gentleman with no eyesight but a grand vision) are the most remarkably humble and loving souls (most achievers and philanthropists are humble, it reminds me “empty vessels make the loudest noise” – humility is almost as extinct as the dinosaurs these days)

Meeting such people energizes me, restores my faith in humanity and revives my optimism in my country.

But then what saddens me is the challenges they face- which seem so simple and easy to solve yet so insurmountable given the culture of our country

Need more paid surgeries but many opthals wont give referrals as they either don’t get commission or it cuts into their own hospitals

Need alliances with more hospitals so their students get more practical knowledge but alliances haven’t worked out due to hidden agendas of some hospitals and lack of quality hospitals in interiors

More than 2 years outstanding of government dues

But what Vir, my son and I learned in our visit is something priceless – no matter what the challenges are, when you are doing good, the “nasha” gives you the energy and optimism to do the best and be the best you can. 
Request all our readers to visit this hospital.

Thank you Sheetal Navani for organising this 

Thank you Mr Nitin Desai for inspiring us today !!!