On the occasion of 25th International Day of the Persons with Disabilities, Bright Star Society is currently conducting a week-long disability awareness campaigns with different activities and initiatives to increase awareness and promote the understanding of disability rights and issues amongst the people. As an onset of the campaign on Dec 3 Saturday, Bright Star Society, together with Gwahali group and Leo clubs, organized a mass inclusive solidarity rally and special program to mark the International Disability Day 2016! The inclusive Rally focused on raising awareness regarding the newly-constructed Tactile-paving routes for visually-impaired in Kathmandu. The rally primarily aimed at educating people about the significance of tactile paving, making them understand about the right to risk-free navigation and obstacle-free mobility of blind and visually-impaired on Tactile Path. Tactile-paved yellow path is a new addition in promoting accessible mobility environment for visually-impaired pedestrians in Kathmandu, however, there are many hitches, potholes and obstacles in the pavements which always affect the barrier-free navigation of blind individuals. So the rally gave a symbolic pressure to government and stakeholders to fix the hitches by marking those places that needed to be fixed with paintings and question marks. With this symbolic pressure, we also asked people (who were not with disability) to join their hands to help endorse better accessibility for the persons with disabilities.
After the rally, the formal program was organized in which the chairperson of Bright Star Society, Mr. Bashudev Adhikari, stressed on the importance on right-based approach to improve the lives of persons with disabilities in Nepal.
The program was wrapped up by distributing white canes to 100 blind and visually-impaired individuals.
This year, the global theme for Disability day is “Achieving the 17 goals for the future we want”. Hence to help shape the better and brighter future of people with disabilities, Bright Star Society is working hard with the aim of reaching unreached and helping them become independent through various entrepreneurial and capacity-building skills.
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