2020-11-10
Under the esteemed guidance of our respected Vice Chairman Mr Arpit Chadha and Secratary Sir, I.T.S College of Pharmacy, Ghaziabad organised an event on 10th November at 1 pm on the topic “Disability rights awareness”. The session began with a welcome speech by Dr. Sadish Kumar S, Director, I.T.S College of Pharmacy. He introduced the convenor for the session Mr. Shameer Rishad who spoke in elaboration about his foundation which was launched in March 2019, Javed Abidi Foundation, JAF aims to effectively implement the Rights of Persons With Disabilities (RPWD) Act of 2016 the foundation strives to bring youth together, foster friendships, and create a community where individuals and youth with disabilities know their rights. It trains them to be young leaders in the disability space, and effectively enable change. Mr. Rishad spoke about his role as convenor in the Javed Abidi Foundation. This foundation is a tribute to his late uncle Mr.Javed Abidi who was a disability rights activist and fought really hard for disability rights. He lobbied the first law for disability in 1995. The RPwD Act, 2016 was a big achievement for him. Further he went on to speak about the four models of disability. The first one being the charity model, second one being the medical model, the third model, being social model and the fourth one being “Human Rights Model”. He further spoke about the RPwD Act to have a better understanding of it. The session was graced with the presence of two prominent speakers the first one being Ms. Aishwarya Othena. She has a master's degree and is pursuing her PhD, she is an avid reader and a novice writer. She is now exploring use of art to confront ableism. It is her passion and her profession. She spoke about how a disability need not be considered as a constraint getting rid of this stereotype could be the first step towards doing something, rather than just protesting she also spoke about distribution of power. The next speaker, Ms Sneha Dasgupta who is associated with a number of organisations spoke about how teachers should be more open to accessibility options such as sign language so students like her can still communicate with them. The faculty of a school need to have accessibility options to accommodate deafness and other disabilities. The state shall not discriminate on the basis of disability. She also said to ensure the equality, we need to end discrimination based on disability. This was then followed by Question & Answer session where the speakers addressed all the questions with extreme enthrallment. The amazing event was then concluded by the Director Dr. Sadish Kumar S. He addressed the students and asked them to brain storm on what we as a society could do for the people with disability. 153 students and faculty members of I.T.S College of Pharmacy joined the session with lot of enthusiasm. The session was also live streamed on Youtube. The students found the session to be really interesting and extremely useful.
