Mother nurture

Our personal tragedies often shape the goals of our lives. For Shanti Raghavan, it was her brother's retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease. He slowly lost his vision over a period of time. But Raghavan, an IT engineer, turned this window of time into an opportunity to help her kid brother lead a normal life using special software for the visually-challenged.Today he is a successful programme manager at an MNC.
Seeing her brother lead a regular life encouraged Raghavan to dive headlong into a career dedicated to empowering the differently-abled . Soon she and her husband Dipesh Sutariya started EnAble in Bangalore in 1999 with the mission of enabling people with special needs.
"When I started out I didn't know there are 70 million disabled to reach out to," says Raghavan. She slowly expanded her work to include other special needs, and EnAble would provide them with free training in computer literacy and analytical life skills such as operating an ATM machine. "The training is for six months but in some cases it takes more than five years. And, we don't want to just build hope in them. We want to empower them with a skill set that will get them a job, give them the confidence to lead an independent life."
Though EnAble started off as a self-funded organisation, Raghavan and her husband have since 2008 been raising funds. It now trains 80 to 90 candidates annually, ensuring 100 per cent job placements. But charity for Raghavan begins at home. A student with muscular dystrophy in one hand has designed the EnAble website. He also works as a graphic designer in a private firm. Another candidate with schizophrenia, someone who used to send long emails to Raghavan, was recently placed as a content developer.
Thanks to her efforts, it is not surprising to see in Bangalore a visually-impaired cashier at a petrol pump, or a hearing-impaired waiter take your order at a coffee shop. Some public sector banks and government departments too have approached Raghavan with placement calls. In April last year, Reuters requested EnAble for 30 candidates. "We provided them 14 hearing-impaired candidates and they are outperforming the staff," Raghavan says, pride brimming in her eyes.