Accessing our Rights 

Mahesh

27 Apr 05

Presentation of Mahesh on 27 April 2005 at Mobility India

In my presentation, I would like to share some experiences from our CBR programme.

As mentioned by my colleague in the previous session, the major outcomes of the CBR programme has been “ it has provided an opportunity for disabled people and their families to come out of their houses, to get organised into self help groups (SHG), to be self reliant, to be counted, to be heard and to assert their rights.

Following are some of the practical ways facilitate by my field teams “ examples where disabled people and their families have joined together to access their Rights for a better quality of life.

 Right to Basic amenities  

1. When drinking water was getting contaminated with leakages from the sanitation pipes. The SHG members from Makkala Chaitanya group decided to act on the issue as this was not only affecting some of their members but all the residents of the street. The SHG jointly presented the problem to the local authorities and got the problem rectified with new pipelines being laid.

2. Similarly, in LR Nagar the people used to fetch drinking water from the neighboring area. The 3 years of persistent efforts and rallies by SHG members in collaboration of other groups and local NGOs have resulted in piped water being available in most of the streets at LR Nagar.

3. In Avalahalli, an area which belongs to a village panchayat (unit), the SHG members have taken the initiative to be part of the area development committees and are aware that 3% of the development fund have to be used to benefit the disabled person in the locality. Some of the projects envisaged to use this grants effectively are for adapting toilets for the disabled in their houses.

4. Bad roads or no roads seriously hamper no only the disabled but also the residents of Ambedkar Nagar. This was one of the issues taken up by the Makkala Deepa and other SHGs in Banashankari area. The groups with their repeated appeals to the concerned authorities, accompanied by a feasible action plan have ensured new concrete roads have been laid and have also catalysed appropriate road repair works in their locality.

Right to health

1. 6 people from the different SHG had applied for accessing the grant under the corrective surgeries scheme of the Government whereby the people are entitled to a subsidy of Rs 15,000/- towards the surgery. Some of them did receive an order copy sanctioning Rs 10,000/- each for the surgery, however they were made to run from pillar to post to en-cash the same. After more than a year of this struggle “ the applicants joined together with the SHG members and literally gate crashed to the Director's office placing their demands. Finally the members managed to get the amount sanctioned “ as a result 5 of the 6 original applicants underwent the surgery.

Right to livelihood  

1. Disabled people who wanted vend small items on the street side like any others received stiff opposition from the locals. With the guidance and support of the SHG members, they approached the local police, got the necessary letters from the city corporation and the councilor, which enabled them to sell their wares on the side of the street.

Right to participate in democratic process “ come together, identify challenges of and to respond appropriately 

1. The SHGs like Makkala Chetana and Asha Deepa did not have a proper place to conduct their meetings and the meetings were conducted on the road side. The SHGs were facilitated to approach the local councilors and after a lot of persuasion the SHGs have been given the permission to conduct their meeting in the local Anganwadi centre (Government run Day Care centre).

2. When the disabled people from one of the areas submitted their applications to the local Thasildhar's office to avail the disability pension, their applications were rejected on the ground that the disability identity card that were certified by the Government doctor were not sufficient and the applications had to be submitted with fresh medical certificate.

The CBR team facilitated the members of the Makkala Jyothi SHG (which includes disabled people and their families) to bring this practice to the notice to the Commissioners office for Disabilities responsible for implementing the disabilities Act. The letter issued by the Commissioner's office was then show at the Thasildhar's office and from then on applications for disability pensions have been accepted with only the disability identity card. 

3. The issue of bribing Rs 100/- for getting the income certificate was also dealt with by the members. The members now directly approach the Nada Kacheri (ward office) to the income certificate. This certificate is mandatory to avail any subsidy from the Government social security schemes.

In conclusion 

In spite of these achievements, the process of ensuring people have entitlements to their rights is a slow laborious and tiring process.

And the challenge while organizing the people is to sustain and stay focused on achieving these basic entitlements.

We have to cope with this process because as it is we are working with poor families and a having a disability makes them doubly poor and for them to be resilient makes the whole issues of accessing and enjoying their rights all the more complex.

And at district/ state/ national level -

There is little understanding of the idea that general systems and services need to be made more accessible for people with disabilities to facilitate an independent lifestyles.

Government policy towards people with disabled people remains largely "welfare" oriented and restricted mostly to the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. The mixed approach of both 'rights' and 'welfare' is peculiar and many times confuses policy makers and disability activists.

The current understanding of ˜Rights based" approaches are supported more by international development organizations than local ones, and an ideological shift towards rights is underway, local practitioners still see it as a 'new' approach and lack of specific knowledge and skills to programme, monitor and evaluate results.

We have made some beginnings but obviously the current scenario also demands for the need to develop and strengthen the disability movement in our country, come up with practical ways in which disabled people should be included in the development process and demonstrate processes where disabled people have been able to access and enjoy their rights like any other.

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