‘Being included’ is a feeling of joy that is experienced and acknowledged by all of us in many ways and phases of life. ‘Inclusion’ here does not refer to an ‘invitation’ to someone to step into a historically barred social setting. That may not be an act of truly honouring someone, even within the bounds of traditional thinking and behaviour.
Instead what we perceive by inclusion is a more ethically enabling and homogeneous social environment, one that is rooted in a bracing sense of equality – invoking respect in the widest possible sphere of participation available to anyone by right; an inclusion that is at once dignifying and self-empowering.
This being our fundamental point of reference and the basis of approach, we as a team strongly feel that persons with special needs happen to be the most vulnerable, marginalised, voiceless and disadvantaged group amongst us. It becomes poignantly so in a culturally traditionalist setting such as ours. The complex of feelings and sensibilities ingrained in such a situation – namely, social stigma, pity, over-protection, contempt, exclusion, etc. towards people with special needs – leads to an extended, deep-seated alienation/detachment of the vast opportunities that could otherwise be available for realising the potential of any such person or group.
We have, therefore, come together to setup a unit that is developmental by occupation, operates with an inclusive ideology and does commerce in a manner that it can offer and sustain the means by which people with special needs can find work and appropriate means of income generation, the concept of development being broader and deeper than just the income.