New Delhi, December 4 – On the occasion of its fourth anniversary, which coincides with the world Disability Day, The Bridge India organised a series of events to mark the occasion yesterday.

These included a Panel Discussion, the Grand Finale of Kaun Banega Social Sector Champion 2021, and felicitation of the Heroes of Humanity. The multiple events were presided over by the Chief Guest Mahavir Sharma, Entrepreneur and an angel investor from Rajasthan.

Introducing the event, Seema Jairath, heading The Bridge India said that the organisation had filled the long-felt need to bridge the gap between the NGOs and the Corporate sector to transform society. She said it its four years it had emerged as a multidisciplinary think-tank in providing advisory support to Civil Societies & Corporates.

The Panel Discussion was particularly relevant as it dealt with issues of participation of persons with disabilities in a world post COVID-19 situation.

The Bridge India in its mission to promote Sustainable Development Goals initiated an innovative way of promoting it by organizing on line quiz Kaun Banega Social Sector Champion 2021

The 3 Winners of the Second edition of Quiz were from Indian Oil Corporation, Mumbai, SAIL, Bhiali and Indian Oil , Haldia who were given gift vouchers of 30K, 20 K 15k. Quiz Deepak Taneja keeping the audience engaged in his style. The event was sponsored by Newgen, Style Mantra , Rang Ragini and Airon.

The purpose of the panel discussion was to dig a little deeper into some of the challenges faced by people with disabilities, and see how collectively it could be mitigated. The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted lives of people living with disabilities in many ways. Some of them were Accessibility, loss of livelihood and many such.

Concluding the fruitful session, the moderator Vikas Kataria from WaterAid India warned that if we society did not accept PWDs as equal stakeholder and beneficiaries of development, we as a country would not achieve the sustainable development (SDG) for all! There is surely a need to creating more awareness towards the needs of PWDs, and even greater to invest on innovative solutions, finding greater participation or mainstreaming in all the spheres of operations and more investments in the friendly infrastructure as well. He said “If we ignore this, we do so at our own peril”.

On this occasion The Bridge India also felicitated Heroes of Humanity who had been short-listed.

For this six Persons with Disabilities from different states who had done incredible work in the field of disability and had now become role models for others were honoured on this occasion on the occasion of World Disability Day.

The real life Heroes selected for this honour were Ragevendra Ratnakar Anavekar ,(Belgaum), Dr. Ritesh Sinha  (Karnal Haryana), Mr. Gunasekaran (Tamilnadu, Chennai) Himanshu Arora (Delhi) ) Priyanka Hasija (Gurgaon) Abdul Wahab  (Assam).

It is also significant to mention that today the Bridge India E-Magazine is reaching out to various stakeholders across the length and breadth of the country covering

Social initiatives of governments and concerned departments

Impact created by corporates through CSR initiatives

Intervention and challenges facing NGOs

Journey of heroes

Development happenings and events

4th Anniversary of Bridge India Coincides with World Disability Day