ACCESSIBLE INDIA CAMPAIGN | Swarga Foundation

One of Swarga Foundation’s basic tenets has been that differently abled in India are a largely marginalized population due to the lack of accessible infrastructure and the lack of access to opportunities available at locations that are inaccessible. Therefore when Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the “ Accessible India Campaign” or Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan in December 2015, Swarga Foundation launched their initiative to make all corporation/ government schools within Coimbatore city wheelchair accessible. None of the corporation schools had a proper wheelchair accessible toilet. Few schools had ramps to their main buildings since the schools serve as polling stations for elections. Coimbatore Corporation Commissioner, Dr.Vijay Karthikeyan, granted permission for Swarga Foundation to pick any school from the eighty plus high schools in the city.

This initiative has already benefitted 10 students and 2 teachers affected with various disabilities. As an extension of this initiative, Swarga Foundation has started mobilizing more funds to build similar toilets at ten other corporation schools in 2018.

Workshops on “Disability & Inclusion” for school children will be conducted to raise their awareness towards the hardships faced by people with disabilities and to understand how seemingly simple tasks can be daunting to them. This should also allow the children to empathize to the needs of special people and to provide them with adequate support. Corporation Commissioner, Dr. K. Vijay Karthikeyan, IAS, and schools children came forward to experience disability to understand the problems faced by people with disabilities.

Marking the World Disability Day this December, Swarga has made 6 schools disabled-friendly. We were able to achieve this by support from Corporates who took this up as their CSR Initiatives. The list of Schools where we have built fully functional accessible toilets and ramps in 2017 and and the corresponding corporates are mentioned below:

Coimbatore Corporation Higher Secondary School – Veeraraghavan & Co.
Trichy Road, Bharathi Nagar
Ramanathapuram, Coimbatore
Tamil Nadu – 641045

Corporation SRP Ammani Ammal Girls School – Habasit Iokoka Pvt. Ltd.
R.S. Puram
Coimbatore
Tamil Nadu – 641002

Corporation High School – NTF India Pvt. Ltd.
PN Pudur
Coimbatore
Tamil Nadu – 641041

Government Higher Secondary School Ganapathy – Hoffensoft
Ganapathy
Coimbatore
Tamil Nadu – 641006

Government Higher Secondary School – Habasit Iokoka Pvt. Ltd.
Arasur
Tamil Nadu – 641048

Government Higher Secondary School – Swarga Foundation
Vagarayam Palayam
Coimbatore – 641659

Corporation Girls School
Puliakulam, Pankaja Mills Road
Coimbatore – 641 045

Government Middle School
MGR Street, Vadavalli
Coimbatore – 641 041

Government Higher Secondary School
Irugur
Coimbatore – 641103

These schools now have ramps to access classrooms on the ground floor and a wheelchair accessible toilet complete with a ramp, grab bars and convenient placement of utilities to enable children and teachers on wheelchairs.

Introducing SARATHI MINI

Sep
14

Introducing SARATHI MINI, Senior-citizen/Wheelchair-friendly van for Intracity travel
Coimbatore Police

Sep
14

Coimbatore Police Stations & Police Establishments made accessible for all types of disabilities/ senior citizens and pregnant women