9th Mile, Khanapara, Ri Bhoi, March 16, 2023: Making people smile happily and with a sense of pride is indeed a good deed. And if they are special people, that good deed becomes a blessing many-fold.
The smiling, confident, enthusiastic and earning members of the ‘I Can I Will Academy’ at the University of Science and Technology Meghalaya (USTM) have now become examples to many proving that physical disability can never stand as an obstacle to pursuing dreams by honing talent and live a respectable life like any other normal person in the society.
The ‘I Can I Will Academy’ has created a deep sense of inclusivity by embracing the Divyangjan students and workers under the initiative of Shri Mahbubul Hoque, the founder Chancellor of USTM and the Chairman of the Education Research and Development Foundation, Guwahati.
“By the end of this year, we want to adopt a minimum of 50 Divyangjan people in our ERDF institutions”, stated the Chairman of ERDF. He said that although the Almighty has given some kind of physical disability to them, they have strong willpower, determination, and commitment. “Already our people have established that in certain cases they can deliver even better than the physically fit people. Society often ignores such people and this creates a feeling of neglect, a negative feeling in their minds. Therefore, we appeal to all those organisations having more than 100 manpower to adopt such practices and eradicate this disease of neglect and indifference. Spread smiles to the lives of many other special people”, he added.
The ‘I Can I Will Academy’ was started by USTM in 2018 – a flagship initiative of the University where various skill-based courses were introduced for differently-abled persons. The Academy is meant for differently able persons and has a flexible curriculum and examination system.