Thursday, July 2, 2009

The View From A Village

Our Awareness Team is truly a marvel. Since early this year, they have been working tirelessly to expand our horizons and take the message of inclusion to slums, government schools resettlement colonies and villages. Their work has yielded outpourings of support from a range of previously unreachable groups like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, government officials, Doon Hospital doctors and nurses, village leaders and even a few politicians.

They say it's easy, they say all it requires is patience and persistence, but I am simply astonished at their determination and resolve and with what they have been able to achieve. They have orchestrated concession camps in urban villages, made friends with every ASHA worker in the district, filed Right to Information briefs to find out how many people with disability have been employed under the government's various quotas and even gotten permission to set up a help desk in the employment exchange office.

Their latest coup occurred this week: they succeeded in getting the government health services to give us space in a village Primary Health Center to set up another satellite Early Intervention Centre.Here's the place. And here's the view from what we hope will be our front door:



And here, In'sh'Allah, are some of our new neighbors:


Unbelievable! It's where we have always wanted to be. Thanks to the wonderful awareness team that made it happen.

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