Annual Award Function A Report

Documentation and transcribe by Ms. Anjlee Agarwal

National Trust

For the Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities, (Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment)

9th Floor, Jeevan Prakash Building, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi-110001 Tel: 43520861, 43520863 Fax: 23731648

Email: nationaltrust@nic.in Website: www.nationaltrust.org.in

12 September 2008

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ANNUAL AWARDS FUNCTION REPORT

S. No. Particulars Page No.

1. Welcome Address by JS & CEO, National Trust 4

2.

Address by Chairperson, National Trust

5

3.

Address by Additional Secretary, Ministry of SJ&E

6

4.

Address by Secretary, Ministry of SJ&E

5

5.

Presentation of Awards by Smt. Meira Kumar, Hon’ble Minister of SJ&E

7

6.

Address by Smt. Meira Kumar, Hon’ble Minister of SJ&E 8

7.

Vote of thanks by Deputy Director, National Trust

9

8. Annexure I- Award Citations 10

CONTENTS

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ANNUAL AWARDS FUNCTION

12th September, 2008 at

Vishwa Yuvak Kendra, Chanakya Puri, New Delhi

PROGRAMME SCHEDULE

Time Activity

11.30 – 11.45 am -Arrival of Smt. Meira Kumar, Hon’ble Minister of SJ&E

-Lighting of Lamp -Prayer Song

11.45 – 11.55 am Welcome Address by JS & CEO, National Trust

11.55 – 12.05 pm Address by Chairperson, National Trust

12.05 – 12.15 pm Address by Additional Secretary, Ministry of SJ&E

12.15 –12.25 pm Address by Secretary, Ministry of SJ&E

12.25 – 12.45 pm Presentation of Awards by Smt. Meira Kumar, Hon’ble Minister of SJ&E

12.45 – 01.05 pm Address by Smt. Meira Kumar, Hon’ble Minister of SJ&E

01.05 – 01.10 pm Vote of thanks by Deputy Director, National Trust

01.10 – 02.00 Lunch

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The Annual Award function, an integral part of the 8th Annual General Meeting, began with the arrival of Chief Guest. Welcome by Sanjeev Sachdeva, Master of Ceremony : “Dear friends, it is a matter of great pride and privilege for me to welcome you all at the prestigious annual awards function of the National Trust. Today we have with us, our Chief Guest whom I prefer to call or address as “Head of our Family”, Smt. Meira Kumar, Hon’ble Union Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment. It is because of her inspirational guidance and motivational leadership, various innovative schemes launched by the National Trust and the Ministry have immensely mainstreamed persons with disabilities and provided millions of such persons including me, to live with dignity in an inclusive environment”. Students from Muskaan, welcomed the dignitaries by presenting a token of love: • Rashi welcomed Smt. Meira Kumar, Hon’ble Union Minister • Nayab welcomed Shri Acharya, Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment • Samir welcomed Smt. Sangita Gairola, Addl. Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment • Rashi welcomed Smt. Poonam Natarajan, chairperson, National Trust • Nayab welcomed Smt. Poornima Singh, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment • Samir welcomed Shri Atul Prasad, J.S. & C.E.O, National Trust All the distinguished Guests then proceeded to light the traditional lamp and formally inaugurated the Award Ceremony. Isha a young girl, sang a prayer “humko man ki shakti dena”. Three persons from Action for Autism sang “Mind Blind”- a song for autism.

The inspiring song by Action for Autism was followed by the Welcome address by Shri Atul Prasad, J.S. & C.E.O, National Trust.

“Hon’ble Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment, Smt. Meira Kumar has always been a great source of inspiration to all of us in the National Trust. She has always been very kind and considerate to all our activities and we have drawn inspiration from her in formulating our schemes, programs and policies. We welcome you Ma’am on this Annual Awards 2008 function. I welcome our respected Secretary, Government of India, Shri K.M. Acharya ji. He has recently joined the Ministry, but even during the short tenure, he has shown the rare sensitivity and awareness to our disability sector. It will be our endeavour to work under his guidance and move forward.

I also welcome our respected Addl. Secretary Ma’am Smt. Sangita Gairola ji; Joint Secretary, Disability Division, Smt. Poornima Singh ji; my friend Shri Ravikant ji, CMD, NHFDC, who have all been very kind and supportive to all our activities in the National Trust. I welcome all the Officers of the Ministry, its ally organizations, our very popular Chairperson Smt. Poonam Natarajan ji, our Board members, stakeholders, NGO’s registered with the National Trust, media persons and above all our real heroes our ambassador, the recipients of Annual Awards 2008. It is because of their good work, hard dedication that we have come forward to this stage. We welcome them all.

When we talk about Persons with Disabilities, we know and we have seen their immense talent, their skills in all walks of life be it academics, sports, science & technology. Name anything and they are there. Their feats, their achievements are remarkable not because they are Persons with Disabilities but because despite the hostile environment surrounding them. Imagine a situation where the entire surrounding is conducive to their development and growth, miracles would have happened. And asking for conducive environment, barrier free environment is not asking for moon. It takes very little effort or money to have a curb cut on our road. It really takes nothing except for probably some space in the mind and heart of the policy makers, of the executors and the society at large.

It is our endeavor through this Annual Awards function and all other activities of the National Trust to demonstrate their talent, to show to the world that it is a world of ability not a world of disability. It is an attempt to discover ability within disability. A very warm welcome to all of you once again. Thanks”.

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Speech by Smt. Poonam Natarajan, chairperson, National Trust

“Hon’ble Minister Mrs. Meira Kumar, Mr. Acharya, Mrs. Sangita Gairola, Mrs. Poornima Singh, Mr. Atul Prasad, all our Board Members, Mr. Ravikant and all our delegates to our 8th AGM and Annual Awards function. First of all many thanks to Mrs. Meira Kumar, Hon’ble Minister, for being with us every year and supporting all the various schemes and support networks that we have been wanting to setup through the National Trust. Thank you very much for your constant encouragement and support. And many thanks to Secretary, Addl. Secretary, Joint Secretary of the Ministry for being with us and supporting us through trying to answer this very difficult question which the National Trust engages itself in “What will happen to my child when I am no more?” In answering this question we have travelled many remote with our stakeholders- the registered organizations, NGO’s, the parents associations and associations of persons with disabilities. Our Annual Report this year has a slogan which says “discoverability”. We want to thank our J.S., Mr. Atul Prasad for coining this slogan. And discoverability is what we want to happen with the National Trust, for our stakeholders and their families. Because when we talk about this question “What will happen to my child when I am no more?” the most important thing is about building capability; about skill development; about opening doors of training Institutes which will welcome people with developmental disabilities that the National Trust represents. It is about giving opportunities to people with disabilities to live within their families and outside their homes in safe environments. As they become adults, if they want to work, it is fair. To find them jobs, employment and if open placement is not possible, then to enable and empower the sheltered workshops to make them earn more money.

So these are the aims for trying to develop a support network, support systems which will support young people to develop more skills and truly enable and empower them. Some of the schemes I have been presenting in the Annual Report to the delegates and I would just like to quickly summarize the same for our Hon’ble Minister. We have several schemes at the National Trust which we are taking forward from the earlier year like the Samarth scheme which is the short term and long term stay. We are looking at our State Nodal Agencies and our State Nodal Agencies Partners whose roles we have changed to become more networking agencies, becoming documentation centers so that we have a good idea of who are the people, who need the support systems and for liaisoning with the State Governments, so that the State Governments are also aware of the needs of people who are under the National Trust disabilities.

We have started schemes like the Gyan Prabha and the Uddyam Prabha which are actually to encourage young people to try for admission into training institutes, to change the people’s attitude and to see that they have the ability to get trained and hold jobs. We have the Niramaya health insurance scheme, which you had inaugurated for us and lot of people are very excited about participating in health insurance and better quality of life has been possible for our stakeholders.

On the 22nd of September we are launching the Marketing Federation “ARUNIM”, which is a dream to see the workers of sheltered workshops earn more money through trying to setup good marketing distribution systems and networking opportunities for marketing products made in sheltered workshops. ARUNIM, we hope will really add value to the lives of people with profound and severe disabilities and also help them to become contributing members within their families by earning a salary.

We are looking at many partnerships with organizations which are building capacities, early intervention like the Voice and Vision, Voluntary Service Overseas in building capacity; see how to use national volunteers across the districts in the states. All these are different programs and projects that we have launched and slowly launching and hope to take them across the country. It is really wonderful to have all our delegates here yesterday for the knowledge workshop where we had speakers across the board. We had two lawyers talking about legal capacity, four professionals talking about autism, we had General Sandhu speaking on fund raising and we had knowledge partner IBM talking about all the technological advancements. We are hoping that delegates have the information now and make their work grow, the ultimate aim is that our stakeholders are more supportive, have a better quality of life, get empowered and can really truly take care of themselves, whether we as parents are there or not.

Thank you for being with us and all your support”.

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Speech by Madam Sangita Gairola, Additional Secretary MSJE

“Hon'ble Minister for SJ&E, Mrs. Meira Kumar, Shri K. M. Acharya, Secretary MSJE; Mrs. Poonam Natarajan, Chairperson, National Trust; Mrs. Poornima Singh, Jt. Secretary; Sh. Atul Prasad, JS & CEO National Trust, ladies and gentleman.

The wonderful song sung by the young lady today “humko man ki shakti dena” followed by the young men singing “Mind Blind”, set the tone for the day. I congratulate the National Trust for the excellent work it is doing to nurture the vast talent that exists among the men and women who are struggling against all odds to find their own space in this world, a space where they can live with dignity and contribute to enrich our society. A host of schemes have been prepared for incentives and scholarships and to provide all manner of support to discoverability by the Trust. I wish you all success in your endeavors. Finally I would like to congratulate all the award winners today and also all those who are winning in the race of life in their own way. Thank you.”

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Speech by Shri K. M. Acharya, Secretary MSJE

“Hon'ble Minister; Chairperson, National Trust; my colleagues Mrs. Gairola, Mrs. Poornima Singh; Sh. Atul Prasad, Shri Ravi Kant, Board members of National Trust, delegates, ladies and gentleman.

I am extremely grateful for being invited on this occasion. In the past few months I didn’t get much opportunity to look after the work of National Trust and therefore toady I am extremely pleased as I have come to know about the activities of National Trust. When I arrived, Chairperson National Trust was making a presentation and I wish I was there for the entire presentation.

First of all, I would like to congratulate all the persons who are going to receive the awards today and just like to share couple of thoughts. I have been reading and again today Mrs. Natarajan repeated that National Trust was set up in response to a very difficult question of parents, ‘what will happen to my child, when I am no more’. It’s a matter of great satisfaction that the National Trust is finding answers to this question. My thought particularly go out to the children who suffer and the families where the parents are not so concerned about ‘what happens not only when I am not more, but also when I am around but too busy thinking of earning the next meal’. Children who suffer from these disabilities and in addition belong to those families which suffer from chronic disadvantages including socio economic disadvantages; I think that’s a group which also must come centre stage in all our deliberations. I am sure it is receiving considerable amount of attention and I will be very interested to learn what happens to such children in doubly, triply disadvantaged backgrounds; whose parents cannot come to the local level committee. Then the LLCs have to go out and look for these families and find ways of supporting them. That’s the target group in my opinion.

Whatever little I have studied of the Act, I think some improvements possibly are in order for strengthening the various provisions of the Act. For example: National Trust and LLC are the only two tiers, which are institutionalized in the Act. The time has probably come for considering whether we need to introduce a state level tier, formally in the law and not just as the non-statutory arrangement of SNAP and SNAC. Moreover the nomenclature of LLC is slightly anomalous. They are District Level Committees and should actually be called so and have further LLCs for example at the sub divisional level or at the level of a large town. I think these are the kind of issues which would be useful to address. At this point of time, this is all I wanted to share, as I said I would be very very interested how things go along and how we can be of any assistance to the National Trust and the “whole family”, which the National Trust caters too”.

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Presentation of Annual Awards to 21 recipients in individual and institutional categories by Hon'ble Minister for SJE, Mrs. Meira Kumar: As mentioned by Master of Ceremony, an interesting fact is that the age of the awardees ranges from 8-80 years, as evident from the photographs.

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Speech by Hon'ble Minister for SJ&E, Mrs. Meira Kumar “Shri K. M. Acharya, Mrs. Poonam Natarajan, Smt. Sangita Gairola, Smt. Poornima Singh, Shri Ravi Kant, Sh. Atul Prasad, members of the board of National Trust, officers of my Ministry, representatives of NGOs, friends from the media, recipients of the Annual Awards and friends.

I am very happy to be here with all the stakeholders on the occasion of 8th Annual Awards, National Trust. In fact the AGM and Annual Awards of the National Trust have become a yearly event of my Ministry. It s here in the Award Ceremony that I meet so many people with varied achievements, it shows how the field of disability is progressing and it is amazing to see the will power, perseverance and hard work of all the achievers. My congratulations to them! Today’s awardees will become the role model for others in the country. They would inculcate the spirit to strive harder and achieve more and more. The National Trust Act is based on collaborations of registered organizations, LLC and National Trust office. By only being together, we can hope to achieve our objectives. There is one thing about the National Trust, which I would like to emphasize as has been informed to me by Poonam Natarajan, this is the only Act in the world of its kind, which answers the very difficult question- ‘what happens to my child, when I am no more’. This question is foremost in the minds of not only parents but also us. For this reason, the activities and reach of National Trust should increase multifold and we should not expect that people who need us should come to us. However we should bear this in mind that we have to reach out to them! They might be any where in our vast nation- be in villages, in remote areas, wherever they are, whether they are rich or poor, we have to reach them. We have to always try our best to assure them that we are there to care for their children. This requires us to develop several support systems. Legal guardianship through the LLCs is the most basic and I am happy to hear the work of the 6 best LLCs. But I am also aware that much more needs to be done by the National Trust and the other stakeholders to ensure better results. We are trying our several strategies of training and awareness raising to ensure effective functioning of LLCs by focusing on creating a platform for skill development. You all may be aware that twin objectives of the National Trust are Community participation and Inclusion. One of our major concerns is economic empowerment. I am given to believe organizations registered with the National Trust are enthusiastic about their participation at Shilpotsav at Dilli Haat; my congratulations and appreciation to them. Also I would like to wish ARUNIM, marketing federation of National Trust, which will be launched on September 22nd. All the very best! It is with such activities that we can really hope to enable and empower people with disabilities. I sincerely hope that all the stake holders make full use of these schemes. Each one of you has a duty; duty to make people understand that disabled people can also do many things, if given the opportunity. Each award has been specially instituted to ensure that this forms the source of encouragement for their all out progress. I thank you for being here, it is only through working together, that the goals and dreams of National Trust can be achieved. Thank you.”

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Vote of thanks: Mr. Rajneesh Sharma

“Hon'ble Minister for SJE, Mrs. Meira Kumar, respected Dr. K. M.

Acharya, Secretary MSJE, respected Mrs. Poonam Natarajan,

Chairperson, National Trust; respected Madam Sangita Gairola,

Additional Secretary MSJE, respected Dr. Poornima Singh, JS

(DD), Sh. Atul Prasad, JS & CEO National Trust and other

dignitaries present in the hall. Your presence has worked as a

catalyst to spark & ignite the minds of the participants present

here. It's my great privilege to convey vote of thanks before this

august gathering on behalf of National Trust. The National Trust is

dedicated to the creation of a nation-wide movement which will

lead to affirmative action for the protection, care and inclusion of

persons with Autism, CP, MR & MD. The PwDs thus could lead joyous lives within or close to their own

communities. The ultimate goal of the National Trust is to provide social, financial, emotional and physical security of

comprehensive nature to persons with four disabilities.

We are thankful to Hon'ble Minister, SJE for attending and distributing National Trust Awards, 2008. She has been

kind enough to take out some precious time out of her busy schedule. We are delighted in the presence of

respected Secretary who has been a constant source of inspiration for us. His auspicious presence has made the

significant contribution to our thought processes. Respected Chairperson National Trust has always blessed us with

her sense of concern and elderly gestures about the issues related to 4 disabilities. Respected Additional Secretary,

her energetic & dynamic approach has yielded mind-blowing impact on us. Respected Madam Poornima Singh,

Joint Secretary (Disability Division) with her continuous support has always motivated us. Sh. Atul Prasad, our JS &

CEO has been the source of inspiration with his decent appeals.

The National Trust is thankful to the officials of Vishwa Yuvak Kendra for making nice arrangements. And of course

thanks to all the participants who are present here. Our special thanks to Mr. Sanjeev Sachdeva for his excellent

compeering, who inspite of Muscular Dystrophy is doing so well. He is Deputy Director, Lok Sabha Secretariat. Our

special thanks to Ms. Anjlee Agarwal who is taking down the proceedings of the whole programme.

Thank you all”.

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Annexure I

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Documentation and transcribe

Ms. Anjlee Agarwal Executive Director, Samarthyam

www.samarthyam.org

Photography and recording Mr. Debabrata Chakravarti

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Contact details:

National Trust for the Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities, (Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment) 9th Floor, Jeevan Prakash Building, Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi-1 10001 Tel: 43520861-64, 23766898-99 Fax: 23731648 Email: nationaltrust@nic.in Website: www.nationaltrust.org.in