News

Volume 3 Issue 8 - April 15, 2005

Protest march demands inclusion of mentally disabled children

DNIS News Network - A group of determined individuals held a protest march agitating against systems of exclusion of mentally disabled people, in society.

On 7 April, Society for Child Development (S.C.D.), along with several mentally disabled children, parents of disabled children and social activists, held a protest march in New Delhi. Led by S.C.D. Secretary Dr. Madhumita Puri, the protesters expressed their discontent about the exclusion mentally disabled children and adults have to face in society.

The issues brought up were non-inclusion of such children in regular schools, unmonitored and inadequate learning facilities in special schools, lack of Delhi Transport Corporation (or D.T.C.) concessions and the lack of air travel concessions. Apart from these, one of the major causes of protest was that the Delhi State Ministry of Health has not yet constituted a Medical Board for the issue of the Disability Certificate.

The march started from Rajghat and went on for a few hundred metres. Following that, a delegation, with a charter of demands, proceeded to meet the Chief Minister of Delhi, the State Minister of Health and the State Minister for Social Welfare. On the anvil is a meeting, tentatively scheduled for later this month, to review changes which have been made upon submission of the charter.