Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
Shruti’s Story
Shruti Pushkarna was born with a weak eye muscle, which impacted her eyesight and resulted in high myopia. Then, when Shruti was about 3 or 4 years old, her mother was diagnosed with a form of rheumatoid arthritis that confined her to bed; she was immobile and in constant pain. It was a challenging world for a child, but Shruti’s experience dealing with disability from her early years shaped her journey into becoming an empathic disability advocate as an adult.
Today, Shruti works as a disability awareness consultant for organizations and changemakers, as well as counsels people with different disabilities and their caregivers/parents.
First role model
Her mother was Shruti’s first role model. “I never saw my mom as disabled, but… I thought my mom was very smart.” Her mother devised ‘homemade solutions’ to address the barriers that constrained her, says Shruti.
“She set up a frying plate next to her bed so she could make some lunch for me. As a child, I complained that all mothers cooked for (their children) but not mine. So this was her solution.”
Her parents also got a carpenter to build a wooden stool with wheels, the same height as her mother’s bed and the toilet seat, to enable easy transfers. “At that time, there were no slim wheelchairs available in India, and the houses were not designed for access needs,” explains Shruti, “So despite her immobility, she could wheel herself.”
Her mother’s ingenuity left a strong impression on Shruti. “I have since learned that people with disabilities are great innovators because they have to figure out how to navigate life.”
Watching her mother navigate the complexities of her environment deepened Shruiti’s understanding of the need for disability awareness, education, and inclusion. When COVID derailed her career as a journalist, she became a disability advocate, a vocation that flourished in the innovative work she next did with George Abraham, a disability advocate for the vision-impaired community.
“Journalism was reaching a point of sensationalism in the country, and I felt my work was not making any impact, so I turned to the social sector. When I met with George Abraham, he was looking for someone who understood impact and storytelling, and I was a good fit. In fact, he couldn’t afford to hire me and offered to pay me half my salary, but I was so desperate to do something meaningful that I took up the job, and there was no looking back,” says Shruti.
George Abraham’s Story
George Abraham was born in London in 1958 and lost his vision after suffering a severe bout of meningitis at 10 months old. His privileged upbringing in Delhi, attending inclusive schools, followed by a career in advertising, made George oblivious to the life lived by an average vision-impaired person in India.
Then, on a family trip to Dehradun in 1988, George visited the National Institute for the Visually Impaired, where he first realized that the visually impaired community was under-resourced and underserved. Yet, they did not let that stop them from enjoying a game of cricket. Playing cricket became a passion for George, and in 1990, he founded Cricket for the Blind in India.
“He took it to different levels, state and national,” said Shruti, “then realized other countries are playing, so why not start a worldwide blind cricket association?”
An intrepid entrepreneur, George rounded up representatives from seven countries – Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, England, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and India – and in one day, established standardized rules for international games of cricket for the blind, says Shruti. In 1996, George was elected Founding Chairman of the World Blind Cricket Council he co-founded. In 1998, he envisioned and organized the inaugural World Cup of Cricket for the Blind in Delhi.
Changing perceptions
A social entrepreneur, disability activist, and advocate for the visually impaired, George went on to establish the SCORE Foundation and Project Eyeway. His advocacy focuses on changing the perception of blindness, emphasizing that the main challenge is the societal mindset rather than the disability itself.
Shruti joined his nonprofit when George began scaling up a national helpline for blind people across India. She helped put together a project working with NGOs from different states, including Mumbai, Kochi, Bangalore, Jammu & Kashmir, and Delhi.
“We trained people from these organizations to be helpline counselors. We brought the technology in, taught them how call centers work, and we made the software accessible for blind people,” explained Shruti. Users can call a toll-free number from anywhere in India and speak to another blind person and be counseled about their life options.
“We had a tagline saying ‘Life does not stop with blindness.’ Now the program is running beautifully.”
Being Mindful
Working as a disability advocate has made Shruti keenly aware of the need to be mindful in interactions with disabled people. “I learned everything on the job. I had to unlearn a lot of visual things,” she explains.
“Some people with disabilities have inherent trust issues, so I’ve had to explain why I am doing this and why I can empathize. Sometimes parents and teachers of blind people also need counseling on how to best support the blind people in their lives,” she adds. “For inclusion to happen, one side alone can’t be sensitized; the other side also needs to travel midway.”
“Every person’s issues are unique,” says Shruti. “You can’t just paint them with one brush, which is what most nonprofits are trying to do.”
Moving the needle
But moving the needle on disability awareness and change is challenging. “People are afraid to use the terms for disability in fear of offending others, so they avoid the conversation,” she says.” We need to have an understanding that it’s ok to make mistakes.”
While India is investing in a 3-month program to train people with disabilities with marketable skills, instead of ‘Skill India,’ suggests Shruti, “we should have ‘Educate India.'”
Sometimes in families, she adds, due to fear of stigma, even wealthy parents may not pursue rehabilitation options. They may imagine they can protect their children with their money and not prepare them for life with rehab. Shruti then reminds them, “What (happens) after you?”
She explains that a key criterion in advancing disability awareness is to place people with disabilities in leadership positions to influence change. It is not enough to have a department of disability, she says, “Disability is a ‘cross-cutting issue.'”
“If there is a discussion on inflation, there should be a disabled person discussing their needs. Perspectives of people with disabilities should be included in every area, to make the world more accessible to all.”
At IBM, for example, the senior accessibility specialist is vision-impaired, says Shruti; as a result, accessibility is integrated into many aspects at the company, and the specialist is now working on sharing how AI can make devices even more accessible.
“Disability can happen to anyone, so we should design for everyone,” Shruti points out. “The exposure and meeting of these two worlds has to happen for change to happen.”
Initiatives that work
There are several ‘cross-cutting initiatives’ from multinational corporations trickling into India, observes Shruti.
An innovation from NeoMotion, an IIT Madras-incubated startup, is a customised mobility solution. NeoMotion partners with food delivery service Zomato to motorize wheelchairs so users can be employed as delivery partners. “They onboarded over 400 people with locomotor disabilities,” she reveals.
Not only does it offer employment, but the program also creates awareness and opportunities for interaction. If an app user orders food and the delivery person is on a wheelchair bike, says Shruti, the app will advise the customer that the delivery person has a disability and cannot take the elevator, and instruct them to “Please go down and pick up the food yourself!”
Another innovation from Torchit, a startup in Gujarat, is embellishments to the traditional cane used by blind people. It includes a handgun-type device with a camera and Bluetooth connection that attaches to the cane and allows a visually impaired person to call their caregiver to view their surroundings and offer instructions on navigating it.
A nonvisual desktop access (NVDA) screen-reading software is completely open-access to the majority of blind users in India.
Another app called Signable for hearing-impaired people allows them to speak with a hearing person by dialing the app to call up a sign language interpreter who will enable communication with the hearing person.
Many malls in India have been adapted for people with disabilities. Near her home, says Shruti, a mall offers 25 wheelchairs at the reception, hearing-impaired salespeople, quiet zones for autistic individuals, and a silent hour for shopping for people with sensory issues.
“There’s a lot of good work out there, which tells me there are more good people out there than you think,” says Shruti.
Meeting the moment
Shruti herself learned sign language when working with hearing-impaired people. For practice, she sometimes goes to her local Starbucks to interact with hearing-impaired staff at her co-working space. “There are a lot of retail and hospitality industries that hire deaf people. They use a slate tool, gestures, and natural signs to communicate with customers. If I don’t know their language, I will not be able to understand their issues,” she points out.
“Don’t put people into boxes,” advises Shruti. “Don’t be quick to label people.”
She firmly believes in connecting with human beings for who they are and focusing on what they can do.
“I have so many friends who are deaf, blind, autistic, but I don’t think of them that way. I think who is good for book recommendations, who watches a lot of movies, and who can I call for food recommendations. I hope that one day my role as an inclusion advocate will cease to be because the world is so inclusive.”