Orientation on Disability Inclusion for staff of CASA

The Church Auxiliary for Social Action (CASA) reached out to Engage Disability to conduct an orientation for their staff on disability inclusion.

On 15 July 2021, an Orientation on Disability Inclusion for the staff of CASA who constitute their National Gender Task Force was conducted. The staff were workers at the community and regional levels of the CASA structure.

The orientation sought to touch on broader issues related to perspectival change as well as specific technical directions related to disability specific data, and its importance in community work that CASA does.

The session on “Disability as part of Diversity,” handled by Dr Jubin Varghese and Dr Aiswarya Rao touched upon the uniqueness of different disabilities; a holistic approach to looking at persons with disabilities – their significant others, caregivers, siblings; the need for a rights based perspective, and the agency of persons with disabilities. 

The session on “The State and Disability” comprised a broad presentation on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, RPWD Act 2016, and a sharing on available escalation systems at the State/district level for rights, escalation of petitions, and request for provisions were handled by Ms. Smitha Sadasivan and Ms. Ela.

The concluding session on the “Importance of disability specific data: from community level to UN level” broadly covered the available frameworks and benchmarks of how disability specific data could be collected, interpreted and mainstreamed into all other community project plans. Ms. Meenakshi Subramanian who handled this session also highlighted the importance of disability specific data in advocacy both at community and international levels

This virtual orientation had 85 participants from all over India. Dr. Jubin and Ms. Ela and Dr Aiswarya Rao from the ED network, were among the resource persons ED put together to conduct this orientation.

ED is thankful to Dr. Joycia Thorat of CASA for reaching out to ED and providing us the opportunity to carry out this orientation to impact CASA in terms of Disability Inclusion.

Latest News