I am indeed delighted to visit the Pravara Integrated Rural Development Complex, Loni and interact with you all. I realize that this complex has come out of the vision of Dr.Vithalrao Vikhe Patil, whose basic ideology was people centric development and societal transformation. My greetings to the pioneers who have worked consistently for over five decades to realize this complex and to provide the benefits of healthcare, education and employment. Particularly, I appreciate the efforts taken to integrate 20 villages with a population of over eighty thousand people through tele-medicine. The basic emphasis of this programme is to provide healthcare for rural women and children. I am happy to participate in the function where over 800 polio affected children have been rehabilitated through the efforts of the Pravara Medical Trust in collaboration with NIMS, DRDO, ALIMCO and number of NGOs. I would like to discuss on the topic Disability Removal:Our mission.

Rehabilitation

Rehabilitation process should aim at enabling persons to reach and maintain their optimal physical, sensory, intellectual, psychological and social functional level. It has to include measures to provide and restore functions to compensate for the loss or absence of a function. It should include from more basic and general rehabilitation to goal-oriented activities, for instance vocational rehabilitation.

Training is an important educational mechanism to remove the disabilities. We have recently come across one interview with a wrestler who is knee-less and hand-less. The training from childhood, will power to be on own and above all the willingness of benefactors with love and compassion to go all out to help such special persons demonstrates that the special abilities can be built.

Dr Stephen Hawking is one of the most accomplished physicist of our time. This great scholar was affected by motor neuron disease which deteriorated so much that it threatened his research career. His speech became slurry and many people predicted that he will not live to complete his Ph D. His determination and the help that he received from modern technology made sure that he not only lived to complete his Ph D but also made the most enviable contribution to Physics, the string theory. He is a great living example in radiating the confidence to win in the midst of number of physical disabilities.

Blossoming of spirit of service

I have experienced that the composite product technologies helped the disabled to have light weight artificial limbs or FROs (Floor Reaction Orthosis) -Calipers at an affordable cost. I could see the happiness of the recipients in Bhuj after earthquake disaster and in remote villages in Ranga Reddy district. Now I would like to narrate my experience of visiting a FRO Camp at Belgaum for providing rehabilitation to polio affected and special children.

A seven year old boy Master Bhimappa, son of a labourer belonging to Belgaum District, Karnataka studying in primary school had lost both his lower limbs in a road accident. He wrote me a letter seeking help for rehabilitation. Then three of my friends Dr. A.S. Pillai, Dr. L. Narendranath, Shri. Mayank Diwedi, went into action.

Dr. Narendranath, Orthopaetic Surgeon, NIMS, Hyderabad examined the boy - diagnosed and prescribed bilateral above knee prosthesis for him. Sthree Sakthi of Lions club of Belgaum came all out to help the boy by taking him to Hyderabad and treatment commenced on fitment and gait training. With this prosthesis fitment, Master Bhimappa walked confidently and was able to negotiate distances comfortably. Based on this experience Dr. Vijayalakshimi sought my help for providing light weight calipers to many polio affected children of Belgaum region. Our team of doctors and engineers when into action. Lions club organized camps to screen the children for fitment trial. After this event I am now attending a major FRO camp in which 800 children have been rehabilitated. This shows the nobility of heart of all the participants in this mission.

I am confident that the NGOs and Government functionaries in other areas of the country can follow this model for providing relief and rehabilitation to the differently abled children and bring smiles in their faces.

My Experience in Tanzania

I visited Tanzania and South Africa during September 2004. My programme included a visit to Uhuru Primary School in Dar-Es-Salaam, capital of Tanzania where an inclusive training is provided to physically challenged children along with other students. Uhuru Primary School set up in 1921 also admits children with multiple disabilities along with other children. This I consider a great social cause.

Prior to our visit to Tanzania, Shrimathi Meira Kumar, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment had sent a team of doctors and experts with appropriate systems like wheel chairs, hearing aids, prosthetic kits, headphones and Braille slates to Dar-Es-Salaam. Nearly 500 Tanzanian children were provided the assistive devices like hearing aid, tricycles, folding canes and Braille slates. Our team also trained them for using these devices in their day-to-day activities.

When I reached the school on 13th September 2004, it was a moving sight to see physically and visually challenged children trying to keep in tune with their school mates. A band was at hand playing rhythmic tunes on which the children were singing and dancing to celebrate the arrival of the ability. I realize whether India or anywhere, the abilities provided in an environment of happiness and thankfulness engulfed.

Conquest of Vision Challenges through Technology Tools

I met number of people who have fought and conquered the vision challenges. Particularly on 23-Aug-2004, I met Mr. Asif Ali who shared with me his experiences in overcoming the vision challenges that he faced during his teen age and how the technology tools such as screen reader software using the laptop helped him to continue his studies up to post graduation level. He is able to read electronic books, send emails, participate in seminars and presentation and feel very normal and able to carry out his day-to-day activities. Now he is a confident engineer, he takes class in the Symbiosis school, Technology has enabled him to overcome the problem though at a high cost which he is able to afford. I am sure many may be able to benefit from this experience but we have to make special effort to make the technological tools available to them through societal mission at affordable cost.

I am thinking how these technologies can be made available to common people, who are challenged by the vision difficulties. If the software and hardware for the visually challenged persons are available at an affordable cost, if the software is accessible through web, then certainly it will reach the needy and will be of help to them to overcome the problems. In this effort, in Rashtrapati Bhavan, as a first step we are working on a "Speech Applet" which provides a speech interface to my website for the visually disabled persons and has been released on 26 Jan 2005. It provides a speech interface to the user and has been used by many institutions and individuals.

Conclusion

The 2001 census indicates that over two crore people suffer from different types of disabilities. The category wise distribution of disabilities is as follows: Visual one crore, locomotors sixty lakh, mental twenty two lakh, hearing thirteen lakh, speech sixteen lakh. The largest number of disabilities is either visually challenged or movement disability. Hence, all the effort must be directed towards finding technology tools for removing these two impairments. The work done in removing this pain is definitely God's work. I would request the NGOs, corporate, academicians, philanthropists and the government to join together for finding lasting solution to make the life of these two crore people in the country productive. This I would consider a great contribution towards human resource mobilization for the national development mission.

Meanwhile we require an innovative and caring mind to provide productive employment to the disabled persons. Industry Captains and NGOs must take a lead in providing productive employment to the differently abled personnel.

Once again let me congratulate the members of Pravara Medical Trust for bringing smiles in the faces of 800 children today. My best wishes to Pravara parivar for success in their mission of integrated rural development including provision of quality education, healthcare and employment.

May God bless you.

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