ENGAGE DISABILITY INDIA

Mangalore Regional Conference

11-12 September 2024

Participants at Sahodaya, Karnataka Theological College, Mangalore

Engage Disability in partnership with Karnataka Theological College hosted a Regional Conference on Disability Inclusion at Sahodaya Training center in Balmatta, Mangalore.

Participants were led through a simulation experience to understand what living with disabilities felt like. The responses after the experience from participants were deeply poignant. They shared feeling a deep sense of shame, helplessness, and vulnerability at having to depend on someone else for routine tasks as well as intimate tasks. This moving response of empathy felt during the simulation activity became the foundation to build on for the rest of the workshop.

The participants were given an introduction disability terms, an overview of the types of disabilities and brief highlights on how to identify various disabilities. Participants were also introduced to the various barriers that people with disabilities faced in the Church: Attitudinal, Physical, Theological, and Technological.

Listening to persons with visual and locomotor disabilities share about their experiences of exclusion and discrimination in the church, and their aspirations for what they expected from the church, made real for the participants the kind of challenges faced by people with disabilities and how, most often than not, they did not feel welcome in the church.

Disability etiquette around persons with disabilities was another activity based input for participants to understand the right behaviour around people with diverse disabilities. A participatory group Bible study on texts related to disability facilitated by Rev Sandeep Theophil enabled participants to wrestle with difficult texts keeping in mind a disability perspective to re-reading those texts to interpret it towards the full and just participation of people with disabilities.

Knowing Rights of persons with disabilities is key to allies being able to work alongside people with disabilities to secure their rights and entitlements and so a session took participants through the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016.

Participants were also introduced to the resources available through Engage Disability for churches to enable them to become a more welcoming space for persons with disabilities, such as the ED Toolkit for Churches, the ED Audit tool for churches, the Luke 14 Feasts, the Family Retreats, and some Church policies on disability.

To motivate participants to think outside the box, one of the success stories of the ED Chittoor hub and the many ways they have taken forward disability inclusion was shared with participants. Following this participants worked in groups to come up with their own plan of action to work on disability inclusion in their own specific churches and communities.

A total of 60 participants were drawn from various denominations including the Karnataka Northern, Southern and Central dioceses of the CSI, Methodist Church, United Basel Mission Church, and independent churches. They were drawn from various locations around Mangalore like Yadgiri, Bidar, Chamraj Nagar, Chitradurga, Shikaripura, Panamboor, Udipi, Jog Falls, Padur Mumbai, Chikmagalur, and Mysore. Students and staff of Karnataka Theological College also participated actively.

We are thankful to the Principal of KTC, Dr Hubert Watson, and the Registrar of KTC and the ED Mangalore hub coordinator Rev Sandeep Theophil, for hosting this conference and the faculty of KTC who assisted in organising of this conference in various ways alongside the ED team of Ms Jubin Varghese and Ms Jessica Richard.