Disability Awareness Campaigns
Building Back Better
An annual campaign initiated on the advent of the International Day of People with Disabilities 2021.
At Trinayani we felt that India, as a country, is still building back better. To highlight the significance of the themes of the last two years we initiated this campaign that includes leaders with disabilities. It sheds light on the need for accessibility under Goal No. 10 of reduced inequalities of the Sustainable Development Goals.
We had two major sessions on ‘Infrastructure Accessibility’ and ‘Digital Accessibility’ where we had 60 participants in total who are now part of the Building Back Better community. We wish to continue the series and engage the community through awareness sessions and workshops.
You can join our Building Back Better WhatsApp Group for regular updates regarding the campaign.
"Think Ink" Electoral Awareness Campaign - 2019
The involvement of people with disabilities in contemporary events like voting is one of the finest examples of inclusion and a true reflection of what we work for. This campaign was a first-of-a-kind experience for Trinayani and definitely one of our most impactful achievements, where we worked directly with government officials.
Our Founder Trustee Ms Sahni, participated in and attended several meetings and workshops, at the Mantralaya, Mumbai, at the CEO Office and represented Maharashtra in the National Consultation in Delhi. Finally, our NGO was appointed by the Chief Election Officer, Maharashtra, to design the THINK INK campaign for the General Elections 2019, encouraging the disabled community to exercise their right to vote.
We got on board as consultant and partner, Dr Asmita Huddar, Principal, Hashu Advani College of Special Education. Together, we created 2 Electoral Awareness Brochures and a Think Ink electoral awareness film in English, Hindi and Marathi. The first Think Ink brochure targeted the voters with a disability to urge them to cast their votes during the Parliamentary Elections in 2019. The second Brochure was created for Booth Officers providing them suggestions and pointers to keep in mind to facilitate smooth voting by persons with disabilities.
The Think Ink film was created in an accessible format with subtitles as well as Sign Language interpretation. Signex, then represented by Amaresh and Sunil Sahasrabudhhe, did the Sign Language coding. The translation in Hindi and Marathi from the original English script was done by Krutika Gandhare and Madhumanjiri Gatne respectively. The original English audio script along with its Hindi and Marathi versions was recorded in the Studios at National Association for the Blind campus in Worli, Mumbai. We thank Ms Pallavi Kadam of NAB and recordist Robinson for their support. The Think Ink Film and the Brochure were widely circulated amongst NGOS at the city and district levels. We received appreciation for the same from Mr Umesh Sinha, Deputy Election Commissioner, Delhi. The film and the Brochure are available on the website of the Election Commission of India website were used widely across the country for awareness purposes.
You can find the awareness leaflets for the campaign over here
THINK INK Awareness leaflet for Election Personnel
THINK INK Awareness leaflet for Voters with disabilities
You can find the awareness leaflets for the campaign over here
Year-Long Disability Campaign in Four Delhi Public Schools
The Right to Education is a fundamental right. Today schools have a growing need to develop skills to handle differences. In India, we have a government policy in place for Inclusive Education called Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan.
But fear of laws does not necessarily change reality. What we need is a collective will to bring positive change in us and our environment. Currently, the main barriers to equality for people with disabilities are attitudes towards them.
At Trinayani we believe that proper communication is needed to raise awareness of disability, which is too often perceived as merely a health issue, approached with pity, stigma and unknown to the public at large. We design Communication Campaigns to educate people on disability and encourage acceptance of disability as part of the diversity of the human condition (gender, religion, culture, etc).
As a step toward demystifying issues of disabilities, we partnered with Takshila Education Society which manages and runs four Delhi Public Schools each in Patna, Pune, Ludhiana and Coimbatore to conceptualize and design their Annual Theme for the academic year March 2015 -March 2016, which we aptly titled Celebrating Diversity- The Difference is in knowing.
Throughout the year the students expressed creatively their views on Diversities in the display boards across the schools.
We incorporated the theme of this disability awareness campaign in as many aspects of the school as we could Including the libraries, classrooms, assemblies, school notebooks, the summer assignments, the curriculum and many extra workshops, hosted quizzes, debate and elocution competitions that dealt with the same.
We developed two illustrated workbooks, titled I AM SPECIAL SO ARE YOU for primary school students and CREATING A BETTER WORLD for secondary school students as teaching tools, to be used as a starting point for teachers/parents to develop lessons on understanding disabilities along with providing This-Ability articles for its inclusion in the ORBIT Magazine of Takshila Education Society to be distributed in all 4 schools.
Our motto was not only to spread awareness to the pupils but also to the teachers of the schools, through Powerpoint presentations, healthy discussions, case studies and interactions to deepen their understanding of disabilities and diversity a little bit more. We organized a Learning Disability Simulation Lab conducted by Padma Shastry, to give teachers knowledge about how invisible difficulties affect the learning process and expand their understanding of the actual trouble experienced by students who struggle during the process of learning.
Apart from this, the administrative, ancillary, housekeeping and transport staff attended sessions on the role that language plays in the way we think about disabled people, words that need to be avoided and positive empowering words/phrases that should be used. To add a twist of fun and play we created our version of the Snakes and Ladder game. 10 by 10 feet flex with a custom-made dice, where the students become pawns themselves and play the game in teams to enhance knowledge and respect for disabilities and build a moral compass for themselves, differentiating right from wrong. Film screening sessions, like the screening of the audio-described version of ‘The Little Terrorist’ were held to show how entertainment is provided to persons with disabilities.
For the celebration of World Disability Day, we arranged for a Deaf instructor- Harpriti from Deafway, Delhi to conduct a Sign language workshop in DPS Ludhiana, for DPS Pune we arranged for Bhushan Toshniwal who is blind and an accountant and singer to address the staff, for DPS Coimbatore we arranged for Akila Vaidyanathan from the Amaze Charitable Trust, to organize a workshop and exhibition on understanding Autism and lastly, for DPS Patna we had Embracing Diversities workshops for all students in the secondary section throughout the day.
You can view the full campaign report over here.
To commemorate World Sight Day the school took proactive measures by creating awareness about the rampant disability by taking the eighth graders to the Blind School situated at Thondamuthur. It’s a global initiative launched in 1999, which aims to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020.
Partners, including governments, working together under VISION 2020 can make a major difference in the lives of millions of women, men and children already visually disabled or at risk. Preserving or restoring vision can be accomplished at little cost and can help lift people out of poverty.
A short film can be viewed below
On 9th October, the students were escorted by the faculty members Ms Suseela and Ms Shanti left the school around 7:45 am immediately after the attendance and reached the Blind School to commemorate the special event, which sparked off with a Prayer song sung in unison indeed made the ambience more solemn for the ensuing events. It was then followed by an informative speech delivered by Vidunya, which gave a glimpse of the significance of the day in the broader spectrum. Thereafter, the students of the Blind School enthralled the assembly with the wide array of mellifluous songs, which stole everyone’s heart immensely.
After this, a movie titled ‘Little Terrorist’ was screened emphasizing the lofty ethos that regardless of caste, creed and religion, one ought to embrace all religions graciously. The story was then interpreted in the Tamil language as they were not well-versed in English. Eventually the event culminated with a vote of thanks by Ms Shanti.
The Learning Factory," a Musical Puppet Play: Towards Inclusion Campaign
With the enforcement of the Right to Education (RTE) law, there has been a lot of emphasis on including all students in the mainstream education system. This push towards inclusive education, however, is seldom accompanied by teaching the academic community about what inclusion means and how it can be practised. Since educators must truly question the way we approach teaching, we have decided to use the playful yet powerful medium of Puppetry to reach out to the academic community urging them to question their policies on Inclusive Education and inculcate a deeper understanding and Respect for Diversity. The Learning Factory: our Musical Puppet Play on Diversity and Inclusion is based on George Reavis fable The Animal School wherein the animals make common rules for all and later realize that a school with the same rules for all students is dysfunctional since every student has different strengths and they cannot be forced into fixed categories. Puppets have always been used to educate and encourage positive change along with entertaining the crowd. Besides, the imagination of today’s generation which is becoming redundant due to the abundance of technology will also be rekindled.
As a travelling puppet theatre we have performed at the Prince of Wales Museum, Kala Ghoda Festival in 2016, the Godrej Dance Theatre NCPA, the Bandra Auditorium, Praygna Bodhini School, and Beacon High School, where people with and without disabilities attended the show.
A short promo can be viewed here