Accessibility & Inclusion

Vardaan4u.com is a community of professionals, organizations and individuals who are working together to challenge the status quo and establish a sustainable framework for betterment of the society.

Accessibility Audits of physical spaces as well as digital ones are to be undertaken along with review of digital content at Vardaan4u. There needs to be policy for accessibility and inclusion across the board for all establishments, public or private, and for all homes to be defined. Elderly people living alone need accessibility more than anything else at this point in time. A fall in the bathroom becomes fatal for them.

Infrastructure Audit

Digital Environment Audit

Digital Content Review

We intend to expand our scope to physical centres as well at an appropriate time for the care of persons with disabilities and elderly and the next set of users, CHILDREN. These centres will have residential facility, day care as well as a fully equipped healthcare centre to treat them, eventually. A technology based communication hub to contend for emergencies and a digital library for research work to progress in the sector esp. for wearable and non-wearable devices will be a part of the centres. These centres will be built to be accessible from day one. There will be a central innovation and R&D centre set up to give a boost to research in the disability sector.

The total addressable market in the country is around 150 million as of date – counting the elderly, persons with permanent and temporary disabilities. For accessibility and inclusion, the market size was USD $23B in 2018, and is expected to touch USD $35B by 2026, with a CAGR 5.5% from 2019-26. The Indian market size is currently USD $0.6B but expected to rise exponentially since the Rights of Persons With Disabilities Act 2016 time-limit of 7 years to get the infrastructure in place expires in December 2022.

At Vardaan4u, we have a vision for a B2B customer base for the companies, educational institutions, factories, governments, etc. whereby we assess / audit the accessibility requirements and send a recommendation / report with follow ups annually.

Diversity and inclusion

Not just disability, we will look at the entire diversity spectrum: Women / Gender, LGBTQI, Disability – as such the vulnerable sections of society. The RPWD ACT passed in Dec. 2016 in the Indian parliament has a limit till Dec. 2022 for people and companies to comply to the law to become accessible and inclusive. From Jan 2023 on we will see a few changes in a lot of places but that will not suffice. We intend to spread awareness of this shortfall right away, and begin with assessments / audits for the infrastructure, both built and digital. We look to employ and train the marginalized population for audits, inclusion and create inclusive content that can be used for training others. As to the Diversity end, we look to www.BringleAcademy.com as a technology partner for Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship needs at Vardaan4u. For any Health and Wellness requirements, we look to our other partner www.Ablekart.org to fulfil the requirements.

Why should you help?

We all have elderly people at home, sometimes a person with disability or we may know at least someone with disabilities in our circle of friends and relatives. How often have we wanted to reach out to these people and stopped short? How many times have we wanted to dedicate time and provide services to these people? What if you could make a difference and help people?

How would you want to become a part of something Great and Global in Giving back to society?

This is NOT charity; it is a solution to provide an accessible and inclusive life of dignity to people who the society tends to ignore mostly.
Look up www.SoneKiChidiyaKoJagao.com and connect with the emotion #SoneKiChidiyaKoJagao

How can we make a society inclusive?

A. Campaigns

For educational institutions
For industries – each industry needs a specific solution, not a one size fits all
For the government policy updates
For public consumption via short films, vlogs, blogs, social media
Examples
- Run the Mumbai Marathon on 15 Jan. 2023 to create awareness on our initiative Sone Ki Chidiya Ko Jagao for our 3Es and HAT to promote our book of the same name. Check SoneKiChidiyaKoJagao.com
- Car rally in the Western Ghats in Maharashtra in Feb. 2023 to create awareness on the initiative
- Another car rally in the Western Ghats from Goa to Bangalore via Nilgiris and Coorg to look at sustainable development goals in April 2023
- A fourth rally would be in June 2023 in the Himalayas, again for the SDGs

B. How do we measure?

Accessibility Index of Built and Digital infrastructure
- Sharmila Divatia has, at Vardaan4u, created a tool to measure both built and digital accessibility
- Additional parameters to the existing 166 can be added to fine tune the measurements in individual cases
Health Index – Aishwarya Magesh has, at Ablekart.org, started to create a tool to measure health parameters and set up the Health Index of individuals
Knowledge Index – At Bringleverse, the core set of parameters are measured to find the Knowledge Index of individuals – child, teen, adult.

Penalties for violations of the law

Based on the audit reports and recommendations, changes in infrastructure and policies need to be carried out. If found in violation, the first-time penalty is INR 50K
Second offence includes a jail term along with a penalty
Larger the space, larger will be the penalty (per sq. ft.)
Websites will need to be pulled down till review of content and making them inclusive is done
Training for the communication to become inclusive across the organization is essential