How Sarthak Educational Trust Is Making This World A Better Place For Divyangjans
Back in 2004, Dr Jitender Aggarwal, a dentist by profession, lost his central vision due to muscular degeneration of the retina. It was a huge setback, not just for his personal life but professionally. He could have easily given up but realised he could not sit idle and mope. Rather, he decided to do something big.
One day, a thought dawned on Dr Aggarwal. “Weren’t there many others like me grappling with many disabilities? I had some kind of financial backup, but several others didn’t. Couldn’t I help a few others pick up what I was doing? People gave them charity, some even trained them, but no one empowered them by finding sustainable jobs”.
That thought was the birth of Sarthak Educational Trust, and he established the Sarthak Educational Trust for People with Disabilities in July 2008 as part of his mission to remove barriers.
His vision was to make the lives of people with disabilities Sarthak (successful), empower them to become masters of their own destinies and find success in their own lives. “It wasn’t an overnight thought, but a combination of personal loss and empathy towards fellow people with disabilities,” said Dr Aggarwal.
Towards making PwDs Sarthak
Today, Inclusion, empowerment, and mainstreaming of persons with disability is the guiding principle of Sarthak Educational Trust. Through its dedicated efforts in early intervention, inclusive education, skill building and placement, advocacy generation, abilympics and India Disability Empowerment Alliance.
Sarthak is present in 23 locations, namely Chandigarh, Ambala, Lucknow, Jaipur, New Delhi (3), Gurugram, Ghaziabad (2), Bhopal, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Vishakhapatnam, Thane, Chennai, Banaras, Virar, Thiruvantrapuram, Bhatinda, Ludhiana and Ahmedabad.
As Dr Aggarwal mentioned: “Today, this vision and initiative has empowered over 41,000 PwDs, and now, after 23 Skill Building Centers running across India, with more than 1000+ corporate partners like Walmart, Flipkart, Infosys, Amazon, Lemon Tree, IHG, etc.”
For the past 14 years, Sarthak has worked tirelessly on behalf of persons with disabilities, their families, and communities to bring about lasting change and build an inclusive India that treats all people with respect and equal dignity.
Sarthak is a young but effective NGO striving to mainstream people with disabilities. Thanks to its diverse workforce, the Sarthak team is aware of what it takes to ensure that no one has been left behind. Programs and services have been created to make sure that many young people with disabilities can take advantage of chances for high-quality skill education and training.
Vision for 2025
Sarthak envisions touching the lives of 1,00,000 PwDs by 2025. Further, to improve the lives of people with disabilities worldwide, Sarthak chose to establish additional chapters in the UK, USA, Canada, Singapore, UAE, and Africa. In this series, Sarthak is now listed as Sarthak (For Disabled) UK in the UK.
To meet the aspirations of the disability sector, it aims to launch Sarthak Disability Global Resource Centre. The goal is to ensure that all civil societies provide quality and uniform services to people with disabilities (PwDs), that everyone involved has a thorough grasp of disability, and that entrants to the industry receive a guided introduction.
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This is a truly inspiring and uplifting story about the work being done by the Sarthak Educational Trust to empower and support people with disabilities. The trust’s dedication to early intervention, inclusive education, skill building, and advocacy is truly admirable and it is great to see the impact it has had on the lives of over 41,000 people with disabilities.