Something occurred to me the other day. Something that I have wholeheartedly known for some time, but which I had yet to definitively title. I realised that what I do best is tell stories; I am a story teller and I enjoy this endeavour more than any other. My work as a development practitioner and my resulting travels around the world have meant that the stories I have collected, and the ones I convey the most are those which I have encountered in the field during my monitoring visits. I vowed not long ago ‘to tell their stories’ and I intend to keep that promise today..
So on this day, I want to share with you the story of Srikiran Sankurathri..
Srikiran lost his life at the age of 6 alongside his 3 year old sister and his mother who were on board the doomed Air India Flight 182 which was bombed and went down off the coast of Ireland on the 23rd of June 1985. The only surviving member of this family was Chandrasekhar, his father who at the last minute was not able to accompany his family on the journey from Toronto to Delhi. As you can imagine, losing his family had a devastating effect on this man. For a good 2-3 years he admits that he completely lost his purpose and questioned his reason to live. But in 1989 he returned to his wife’s native hometown of Kakinada, coastal Andhra Pradesh and decided to open the Srikiran Institute for Ophthalmology in memory of his son.
I met Dr. Chandrasekhar earlier this year and when I asked him why he had decided on an eye hospital, as he does not have a health background himself, he explained that even at the tender age of 6 years old, Srikiran was intent on becoming an ophthalmologist. So in order to honour his son’s memory and fulfil the role Srikiran would have filled in adulthood, he decided to open up an eye hospital.
In the 25 years since the centre was opened it has provided eye care services to over 2,830,866 outpatients and performed over 250,000 cataract surgeries; most of these either free of charge or at heavily subsidised rates.
I’d also like to tell you about the members of an Inclusive Child Parliament in Shillong, Meghalaya. Now I have written about child parliaments before but this particular one impressed me more than any other. See this entity was led by some very dynamic children with disabilities, each of whom had been elected into portfolio roles in order to raise their concerns and better the inclusivity of their school as a whole.
I was privileged enough to be present for one of their monthly meetings and listened intently as 1 member reported to the body about the barriers within the school that were restricting his ability to learn and participate as a whole. This young man, was about 13 and had a visual impairment since birth. He stated that the school’s lack of accessible signage meant that he couldn’t find where he was going the majority of the time. He reported that on most instances, due to a lack of braille signage he couldn’t distinguish between classrooms and often found himself in the wrong one. He stated the impact that this had on his confidence and ability to move around freely as the only alternative was to rely on one his other classmates to take him to the right places.
It was reported to me later that this issue galvanised the entire child parliament and they immediately took this to their principal and the school management committee and called for action and change to address this issue. A few months later, accessible signage, in the form of braille plaques at the entrance to each classroom were installed. Thus representing the power of the collective and the importance of such a platform for children, and children with disabilities to raise their voices.
These are just some of the stories of the people I meet in communities across India. Their tales of survival and resilience are not uncommon, but unique given the circumstance they find themselves in within a debilitating cycle of poverty, discrimination and exclusion. I hope to continue telling these stories throughout my career and for the rest of my days.
Sx
I blog for Change. 