Environmental Networking Platform for Children and Youth by SAMSUNG E&A
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Celebrating & honouring the The International Day of Persons with Disabilities |
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What do we consider as an environment? Is it only the air, water around us? To me, the environment consists of everything around me where I live in, including people around me and any issue with respect to any of these components which, around me has a great potential to impact me, you and all of us. So, when we consider that over one billion people, or approximately 15 per cent of the world?s population, live with some form of disability around us, it signifies a lot for the broader term of 'environment'.
Persons with disabilities, often termed as ?the world?s largest minority?, many a times face many barriers while participating in events. Barriers can take a variety of forms, including those relating to the physical environment or to information and communications technology (ICT), or those resulting from legislation or policy, or from societal attitudes or discrimination. The end result is that the persons with such disabilities do not have equal access to society or services, including education, transportation, employment, health care, political participation or justice. SAATHI (www.saathidubai.org) is a group in Dubai that aims at removing the word disability and turning it into special ability. In a nutshell, they are the group that aims at creating awareness amongst the people regarding such children. They have a school called SFS. They had a program at our school entitled ?SAATHI HUGS Day? in which I regularly participate so as to know the children in a better way and know what they really are good at. Aakash, who is my buddy here, is really good at athletics and every single time I meet him, he challenges me to a running race of 50 meters or so. And guess what, who wins??? It?s always him no matter what I try. This easily shows that even though these children do not look or feel very nice at the 1st instance, they are actually much more talented than the ?normal? people like us!!! What they need is support from all corners of society. SAATHI yesterday (2nd Dec-12) held an event in association with The Indian Consulate in Dubai in remembrance of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. They organized an event where they made every single specially-abled child to put their handprints on the canvas. I was in charge of putting the paints on their hands and making them agree to put it the first place. It was a tremendous feeling of painting their hands. It felt like transferring the candle of hope from my hand to their hands through paint. Some children literally freaked at the thought of putting paint onto their hands. We literally had to coax them by saying ?Yes, it would wash off.?(It did!!!) The look on their faces realizing that they had imprinted their hands in the canvas of time really made them feel proud of themselves. Ultimately they coaxed me into smearing my hand with a sponge full of paint and then printing my hand too on the canvas of time. The canvas will be displayed in various prominent places in UAE in the coming weeks for spreading awareness. Then we had talks by Mr. Sanjay Verma, Honorable Consulate General of India in Dubai, Sujit Sukumaran, an acclaimed and renowned Toastmaster who has special abilities, and many others who gave us inspirational talks on children with special needs. Finally at the end of this report, I would like to draw your kind attention to the fact that our environment consists of these people also and their world is somehow different than our day to day life. If you really care for environment, care for this segment of our society. They don't require our sympathy, they require our human touch to gather enough strength to overcome their disabilities and integrate into the mainstream of the society. Then only our environment will be shining green!!!    
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2 Comments
You did a great job, Unmesh! I am so proud of you :-)
I'd been working for disabled people when I was an unversity student.
So I can understand what you are talking about and are feeling.
Isn't it so sad that we can't often see those handicapped people on the street while they are all kept in their house?
Posted 05-12-2012 11:48
Really Nice Effort Unmesh, We at The Millennium School also have Best Buddies Program and we support students from Manzil School and Saathi a lot many of us who have volunteered for the program have a BEST BUDDY assigned to us with whom we meet and interact and support too on a one to one basis. I am proud to have a BEST BUDDY too
Posted 04-12-2012 06:38