Shadishori’s Story: disability rights and education
Stories | February 17, 2022
Shadishori has a mobility impairment. In 2007, CBM’s partner organisation, Nav Bharat Jagriti Kendra (NBJK), came to Shadishori’s village to conduct a survey on the number of people with disabilities living in the village. The project provided opportunities to get training, and Shadishori took up the chance to get three months of training as a nursing assistant.
Through the project’s efforts, Shadishori learned a lot about disability rights, and slowly realised that as well as pushing for her own rights, she could do more to get others involved too. There was a block level DPO being formed, and so she got involved. She helped about 30 people get the paperwork sorted out to apply for disability certification, and 10 families to access toilets through a new government scheme.
Shadishori has also convinced parents to enrol their children with disabilities into school, and two girls and one boy went to school because of her efforts. Younger children with disabilities were now better linked to the Aganwadi centre. Keeping children with disabilities at school is a challenge – they often get teased and find it hard, so they drop out. Children’s clubs were set up in some schools, with support from the project, and this can help change attitudes and reduce bullying.
Women like Shadishori are great role models in their community. As DPOs strengthen and develop it is important to ensure that both women and men take on leadership positions. Shadishori is the treasurer of her DPO.
NBJK has been working in Dhumka in disability rights for over a decade, and has two active DPOs that function at District level. Seventy-three children with disabilities are now in school as a result of the project’s efforts.
Read more about the work of CBM and our partner organisations here.
This project, ‘Poverty Reduction & Community Based Inclusive Development of People with Disabilities in Eastern India’, was supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP).
https://www.cbm.org.au/stories/shadishoris-story-disability-rights-and-education
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