AATRAL: An activity space where youth with disabilities teach you to bake, quill, paint, and dance!

Do you see a person with intellectual disabilities in a café or out for a movie? Ever wondered why?

One of the main reasons is the severe lack of opportunities, both infrastructure and otherwise, for the disabled and the non-disabled to interact and understand each other better. This leads to several problems: low awareness among the general public about intellectual disability, which leaches on to the spheres of education, employment, and even public policy. It also has the effect of low self-esteem among people with disabilities.

Also, work in the disability sector has often been charity-driven, and a rights approach is often not looked at. This leads to the disabled always being the receiver of largesse. However, the disabled can contribute so much with the right tools and resources.

Satya Special School wants to change this through AATRAL, an activity centre for the general public where our youth with disabilities lead fun activities like baking, quilling, art, and dancing, for a fee.

This will also flip the giver-receiver equation, for interactions of mutual respect, dignity, and understanding.

As a first step, we have already collaborated with Eat my Cake! to train eight of our students in baking special goods. Eat my Cake! is a café headed by Ms. Saloua Sahl from Morocco, who visited Pondicherry two years ago and made a home here. Her café is fondly appreciated by both tourists and locals.

For art and craft, our children are trained in painting, quilling and weaving. And who does not want to sing and dance!

Patrons will pay to have the experience of baking their own signature dish, or making a personalized craft item. It will be a step forward in showcasing the capabilities of those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, while creating spaces for interaction and understanding.

This centre will create partnerships with schools in Puducherry, and across the hospitality sector.

The activity leaders (our youth with disabilities) will be paid a stipend for their work. 

AATRAL will help bring to the fore the abilities of the disabilities. It will help youth with disabilities earn a living. More importantly, it will raise awareness about disability and people with disabilities in young children in the state, and among people from all over the country.