-Raiyat Haque & Najah Tahrim
Just when people with disabilities and people suffering from mental illness realized that the world won’t treat them the way it treats other people, Labib Tazwar, an undergraduate student in Computer Science at Stanford University, paved a path of hope for them in Bangladesh. Triggered from an unfortunate incident when his brother, who had cerebral palsy, passed away, Labib initiated InclusionX back in 2015 which is a NGO that works in inclusion of people with disabilities, such as autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and so on, and of people with mental illness. Their work extends to three major areas which are mental health services, inclusive computer & art education and promotion of sexual & reproductive health for people with disorders.
After accumulating students from colleges and universities, in 2016, InclusionX hosted a computer program called “Joy of Computing'' for people mainly with autism, cerebral palsy and Down syndrome where they teach them 3D modelling and computer animations and with consistency of work they managed to train over 200 students from all across Bangladesh since the commencement of the program. Not just that, but to lessen the gap between the disabled and non-disabled society, Inclusion X hosted “Connecting Circles'' where they gather students from schools & universities and take them to vicinities like disability-focused schools to create an interactive ambience where the disabled and non-disabled people can communicate with each other and learn about each other’s lives. What’s more? They also co-organize major high school events hosted by well-renowned schools such as Saint Joseph where they provide all the resources and aids to make the events inclusive of people with disabilities so that they can also attend such events with other people. Despite that, they also provide consultancy to parents of disabled children regarding arranging diagnosis, treatment, therapy, locations of services etc. They also have been making content particularly catering to caregivers of people with disabilities and have videos about it posted on their Facebook page. Moreover, they trained over 100 parents regarding Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) where they trained parents on how to navigate through the puberty years of their disabled child.
For Labib, bringing InclusionX to where it is right now wasn’t a walk in the park. He had to endure and overcome hurdles that came in every step to ensure InclusionX provides what it intends to. In countries such as Bangladesh, where the disabled ones aren’t being treated like other kids in households and deprived from leading a normal life and attending family events, it was indeed a challenge for Labib to convince the parents that their children can learn stuff and live a normal life as well. In terms of financial and logistic support, they faced hurdles too. Apart from that, he, along with his team members, also faced problems in managing work with other organizations but they always had huge support from organizations, such as EMK Center, who had been supporting them since day one. Balancing his academic life parallel to the tasks and effort spent behind InclusionX was difficult for Labib, but thanks to his time schedule that enabled him to manage his works properly. Not only his effort, but his team members also poured their heart out working for InclusionX. The provision and allocations of tasks in InclusionX helps its members to carry out their work efficiently before deadline without any facing delays. “We don’t want other people to suffer because of our delay”, said Labib as delays result in a halt in the chain of work and that is why maintaining deadlines is very important.
In our interview with Labib, we got to learn many fascinating things about him and InclusionX. What intrigued us the most was when we asked him, “If there is anything that you would like to change in this society, what would that be?” His answer was pretty elaborated but very captivating.
“One thing that I would like to change in the society or in young people like us is, we have this biological understanding of what disability is. For example, we see a student or a young person who has mobility issues and is in a wheelchair, we think that the person is disabled because of biological reasons. What does that disability mean? It means that they cannot climb stairs; they cannot go to Mad Chef because there is no accessible way. If we started seeing disability as a social model where a person who uses a wheelchair would not be disabled because they use a wheelchair and can’t walk up the stairs but is also disabled because their school doesn’t have ramps or because their school doesn’t have lifts.”
We want that in our society, everyone will live in the same way but not the way they feel comfortable in. He also mentioned, “We have certain social norms that we consider as proper manners, such as maintaining proper eye contact, but consider a person with autism, they might not feel comfortable with maintaining the eye contact. Therefore, if we see that as a normal variation of human behaviour and just get away from the idea that certain things have to be norms.”
If we start accepting human differences more, including the lives of people with AND without disabilities the world will change for the better. Instead of seeing disability as something that a few unfortunate people have, we should see it as something we all might get sooner or later. Like when we’re injured, diagnosed with a disorder, a disease or just simply old. When a person breaks their leg, we don’t call them “disabled” for not being able to walk but a person who does not have the ability to walk is called a “disabled person.” Why is that the case? Labib tells us, according to society “Anything that requires non-traditional support is considered a disability.” But don’t you think it’s time to change that? We can stop viewing disability as an unfortunate trait and start seeing it as a universal experience which we all can go through at one point in our lives, maybe then we can bring an actual solid change in our society.
Opmerkingen