35-year-old Reetu Mansi, who is visually impaired since birth, is supporting others with disabilities to crack entrance exams and have respectable jobs. She has been creating disable friendly content to help people with visual impairment to crack entrance tests.
Ritu believes that there is no dearth of online material for the preparation of competitive exams such as UPSC civil services, teacher eligibility tests, and other exams, however, the biggest challenge is the accessibility of material for visually-impaired people. “Another problem is that most of this material is in English and students who are in the most rural areas of the country do not still know English,” she added.
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With help from an NGO, she records Hindi audio study material for aspirants to prepare for the exams. The initiative is run by a Bangalore-based NGO Enable India that facilitates the sharing of stories, opportunities, and ideas for differently-abled persons in rural India. The initiative is called Namma Vaani in Kannada and Hamari Vaani in Hindi.
To ease the mammoth task for thousands of aspirants, Reetu first finds the English material, then translates it to Hindi and writes it in Braille and then also records the audio files. “I have been working with the NGO for many years and through their online platform, we aim to reach as many differently-abled children across the country.”
Through the initiative of Harami Vani, now more than 1000 aspirants have been benefited. The audios can be accessed through mobile phones. Apart from this initiative, Reetu also works with Divine Ligh NGO which also works for the weaker and marginalized sections of Indian Society.
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Talking about her inspiration to reach out to differently-abled people, she says “It is overwhelming sometimes when I receive a call from someone unknown, who tells me that they have cleared their exams or have got a job with the help of my study material. That is something that keeps me going,” said Reetu.
Reetu, who is currently a teacher at Navodaya Vidyalaya, Saharanpur at a special school for differently-abled people, also is a counsellor to many. “There are times when many of these people feel very dejected and they probably do not have recourses to reach out to people. I am attempting to help them I also record life-skill records.”
She says helping people comes naturally to her as she has grown up in the same environment. “My mother had started a school for visually impaired students and while growing up, I saw them helping many others in their studies and even bearing their entire cost of living. I feel I am just continuing their efforts to help others,” she said. “Honestly, while growing up, I did have lesser challenges, but I know people, who have had to go through the worst. I aim is to help many of these people.”
“The sensitisation of the society about the challenges of differently-abled people will take a longer time. But, I think if I can help some aspirants to get a good job and reach good positions, they will eventually create a conducive environment for others. Thus, more jobs will be generated automatically,” said Reetu in an exclusive interview with News18.com.
A native of Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh she started working with the NGO in 2019. Despite being differently-abled, Ritu is well-qualified. She is a graduate of Delhi University’s Lady Sri Ram College – one of the top-rated colleges under the varsity. Ritu also holds an MEd degree.
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