CHENNAI: Today, the world comes together yet again to observe and celebrate International Day for Persons with Disabilities. Keeping with the annual tradition, the theme for this year is ‘Building Back Better: towards an inclusive, accessible, and sustainable post-COVID-19 world’.
For people like Jayaprabha C, however, their life’s work has revolved around such a theme long before the world had encountered this seemingly unshakable virus. For seven years now, the Feminine Foundation that was started under her watch has been providing people with disabilities and vulnerable women with counselling and legal aid, besides several other essential services. But, being a person with disability herself, her origin story began long before she could rally the resources for such an organisation.
Seeds for a foundation
It was right after college that she had to visit the Government Hospital, Coimbatore, to collect her disability certificate. And this visit turned out to be much more remarkable than she could have imagined. She had been diagnosed with a congenital hip dislocation when she was three months old. But, it wasn’t till she was in her late teens that it began to have obvious manifestations on her body.
“It did not occur to my parents that I was physically-challenged or that I needed treatment until I completed college. Till then, I managed walking short distances. My condition deteriorated when I had to start walking longer distances in college. My posture changed and I began to lean towards one side to walk. I underwent physiotherapy. It was later that I had to visit the hospital and it turned out to be an eye-opener. There were so many people suffering with varying degrees of disability and they were being treated with little to no importance by officials.
Witnessing those small incidents planted the idea of working with the differently-abled,” recounts the 37-year-old. It was this seed that eventually led to the rise of the foundation, thanks to the team of like-minded people — teachers, working women, college students — who worked alongside her to make it happen. The organisation provides counselling and legal advice to physically-challenged, mentally- challenged, widows, divorcees, acid and fire victims, aged and young women, and female prisoners.
“My husband and I started a tuition centre GJ Academy at RS Puram, Coimbatore in 2008. A portion of the space was later used to set up the office for the foundation. Our focus is to spread awareness among girl children in schools and colleges through street plays, drama and cultural events. Women need to be emotionally strong to stand up for themselves. Sexual harassment, domestic abuse, child abuse... you will hear all kinds of stories from our women.
We have helped 600 women so far,” elaborates Jaya who later started the women’s wing of the Coimbatore District Differently- Abled Welfare Association in 2019 of which she is the president. From a small group of 12 women, the association has now expanded to host 259 registered members. Collectively, there’s a lot of work that they accomplish every day.
“We intend to provide vocational training, skill development classes and job opportunities for our women. Those with severe disabilities and wheelchair-bound are given self-employment opportunities. We offermatrimony services for disadvantaged differently-abled, where we get young couples married. We have collaborated with orphanages and homes to take care of the differentlyabled after the death of their primary caregivers,” she explains.
Professing a change
Jayaprabha has managed to juggle all this work along with her day job of working as an assistant professor in the Department of Biotechnology at GR Damodaran College of Science, Coimbatore. Having a string of degrees to her name — MSc in Biotechnology, MSc and MEd in Botany, PG diploma in Bioinformatics, and eight years of research in Bioinformatics — this is her second teaching job (after the stint as Botany teacher at Vidyaa Vikas International School in Coimbatore), and staff meetings and online classes fill up her routine.
For all this success though, her life has not been without strife. It was in 2012 that she lost her husband to a brain stroke and was left to fend for herself and her two daughters. “If not for my daughters, I would’ve died long back. I had to come out of that dark phase to raise them into bold women. I underwent therapy and channelled my energy in the right direction for a meaningful purpose and that was to help differently-abled people like me,” narrates Jaya.
While Jaya has come a long way, personally and with her social endeavours, problems continue to dot her journey. Not to mention, the pandemic. “I had met with an accident that left me with a nerve injury just before the lockdown. I had to be bedridden and that’s when the news of lockdown reached me. I tried to gather all the well-wishers and we arranged a five-month grocery supply for 2,800 families of people with disabilities. Since our office was temporarily shut during the lockdown, I interacted with our women members through Zoom calls. We brought motivational speakers and achievers from multiple fields to share words of encouragement. It was this that kept us going even during difficult times. These women open up more to us than to their families,” says the disability rights crusader.
For a fair world
Virus or not, Jaya and her team have yet another December 3 come their way. They are preparing for their second edition of Ability 2020 Ms and Mrs Special Woman — a fashion show for differently-abled women — on December 5. Following this, they plan to mark the international day with cultural events on December 26. Past all the fun and celebration, they are not without a clear list of goals that they are still trying to get done through the powers that be.
“Celebrating International Day for Persons with Disabilities is important because that’s our only chance to bring officials and influential people under one roof and address our concerns. The government has allotted four per cent reservations in housing facilities, government, and private jobs. We only want it to go to the deserving people. Second, scooters are given only to people who don’t have both legs but functioning hands.
But, even those with one leg cannot travel comfortably; so, that rule needs to be changed. Third, our monthly pension needs to be increased from Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 for us to lead a comfortable life. And lastly, every district must have an equipment manufacturing unit for differently-abled so that there’s no long waiting period,” she details. This aside, Jaya requests for a small space to be allotted by the government to start a special school for children with special needs offering free transportation and education.
She wants to provide the kids a conducive environment and nurture them with occupational therapy and physiotherapy, and vocational training for the kids’ mothers in order to get them to be independent. “We don’t want to beg and that’s possible only when we are not deprived of resources. I wish we have an all-in-one mobile app to address the needs of differently-abled. We have to run from pillar to post to get all our needs met. It would be helpful if corporates direct their CSR funds towards our welfare and development; and if private organisations employ us based on our capabilities and not our disabilities. We are knocking on all possible doors, hoping at least some will open,” says Jaya.
Jaya and her friends want to make the country and the world an inclusive and peaceful place for all. “Know us for our ability, not for our disability. While our tribe in foreign countries are given due respect and being treated on par with others, people in our country struggle to get even the basic differently-abled certificate to avail of schemes and benefits. Only time will tell if even half of our wishes will come true. Until then, we can only dream,” she concludes.
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