#NewzHook2020 – Top Accessibility Champions of 2020

The coronavirus pandemic increased the vulnerabilities of India’s disabled community. On every front – education, employment, healthcare – people with disabilities were impacted in countless often invisible ways. The situation also brought to the fore people and organisations who stepped forward to address these challenges or speak out for the community. Here is a look at some of the accessibility champions we featured on Newz Hook this year.

When science educators Raka Ray Mandal and her husband Prof B.P. Mandal found out that a school in Varanasi for visually impaired students had shut down many sections due to the pandemic they started online classes to address this gap. From Varanasi the demand grew and the couple reached out to hundreds of visually impaired students during the lockdown.

Staying with science, Surat student Mudit Surana launched an app to help teachers teach science experiments to visually impaired children. Called Dreamss this is a free Android app.

“We are a tiny spark that can set our nation on fire”. This powerful message by deafblind student Asha Patwal reasonated around the world. 16-year-old Asha was among the three winners of the UN World Data Forum Contest. In her short video, she spoke about the need to include people with deafblindness in the Census.

The failure of leading law colleges in India to address the needs of people with disabilities came in for attention finally thanks to the efforts of visually impaired Supreme Court advocate Rahul Bajaj. In a speech, Supreme Court Justice D Y Chandrachud called upon the NLU Consortium to design the Common Law Admission Test (CLAT) in a manner that was accessible for everyone.

And finally Asia’s first deafblind physiotherapist Shruti Lata Singh made her presence felt on the world state. She was teh observer at the UN roundtable held on the even of the International Day for Persons with Disabilities where she spoke about greater inclusion of people with deafblindness in business.

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