ENGAGE the organization I co-founded with my wife Kalpana has been working in the last year and half to promote a localized, sustainable service experience called ENGAGE Corps where Nepali volunteers are trained and deployed to help and support persons living with disabilities.
The overarching aim has been trying to break down the barriers between able and disable, forging new friendships based on respect and equality. So far so good in the sense that our volunteers immediately realized the amazing skills and capabilities coupled with an incredible willpower of many persons living with disabilities.
While the Corps have been offering a useful service or at least while trying to do something impactful, we never really got rid of the divide between “us” and “them”, between able versus differently able.
We always refer to persons living with disabilities as “service users or beneficiaries”. While referring to them in this way, I was always a bit unconformable. Ask my guts.
In carrying out our projects, we always strived for facilitating new relationships between our volunteers and the service users. This is not enough. Not anymore.
Ultimately we would love to reconsider common stereotypes about abilities and lay out a new way to look at what is normal and what is not normal.
Are able persons totally normal? Are we really sure that persons living with disabilities are abnormal?
We dare to be bold and help rewriting the perceptions of society related to the overall disability discourse in the country.
If we really want to be ambitious, why not trying to go beyond the walls of separation between able and differently able in a truly and effective way? How can we shift from a nice rhetoric to real actions?
Can volunteerism really make the difference and create a level playing ground for all? What are the meanings of “inclusive” volunteering?
We bet that volunteering can be truly inspirational by offering a platform for persons living with disabilities to prove that they are also part of the solution rather than simply be “service users”.
In the same ways our ENGAGE Corps got inspiration and motivation from their new friends, we want to go the extra mile and show that persons living with disabilities can volunteer as well.
They can be extraordinary examples of active citizenship, showing the entire society that stereotypes can be defeated and an inclusive society is possible and achievable.
A new participatory space can be created if we lay down the conditions to make it easier for persons living with disabilities to do more for the entire society, not only for the disability sector.
In Nepal but also all around South Asia, there are already outstanding examples of active citizenship and social work entirely run by the free will of common citizens.
After all, the civil society in a country like Nepal is quite strong and well organized.
The disability sector, importantly, has been led by persons leaving with disabilities. In Nepal there is a very active federation, hundreds of NGO run by persons living with disabilities. Is it this enough? We believe we need to do more to bring disabilities into the mainstream of the society.
Would it be possible that a person living with disability might be interested to a cause/issue not directly related to his/her physical or mental conditions?
Should the divisions and stereotypes of the society pre-determine what a citizen might be interested at?
Volunteerism is not a panacea. Volunteerism cannot solve all problems of the society. Still opening up the sector, making it more participatory and inclusive can offer a great platform to re-shape our society.
Let’s allow persons living with disabilities gain full agency and better contribute to make the society a better place.
Let’s volunteerism harness its power to make society more inclusive. This is the challenge ahead for ENGAGE. Our slogan: Inclusive volunteerism for all.
PS
We do not want to be alone in this struggle.
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