Disability is only in the mind. And if one is able to overcome that, a physical disability doesn’t really mean much. A few women are living testimonies to success stories inspite of being differently-abled. Let’s take a look at some of them.
1.Shenaz Haveliwala
When 19-year old Shenaz had her first seizure, she had to leave her engineering dreams as she didn’t respond to medication. But just after a year, she started her first startup- Sobo Connect that provides working spaces to entrepreneurs. Her second venture is proof of her love for gardening and salad-making. Called Le Garden-The Salad Company, it provides employment opportunities for people who have a similar medical condition like hers.
In 2016 she was conferred the Outstanding Person with Epilepsy Award by International Bureau Of Epilepsy.
2.Aditi Verma
When Aditi turned 21, her parents gifted her a small workplace in Navi Mumbai. There, refusing to be let down by Down’s Syndrome, she started a café- Aditi’s Corner. Today, she takes around 80 orders a day and has a regular work day of around 8 hours. Insite of a little difficulty with walking, she manages everything, right from taking orders to maintaining accounts to making the dishes.
3. Sangita Desai
Born with Symbrachydactyly, a condition that leaves a person with limb anomalies, Sangita Desai, is one person to not take any disability come in her way. A successful career in fashion, in which she has styled the likes of Shweta Menon and Manpreet Brar, she explored her entrepreneurial side and established Raw Nature Company, a brand offering botanical grooming solutions. Her products are free from anything artificial and are vegan and cruelty-free.
4. Nidhi Goyal
She was only 15 years old when she started losing her eyesight to an irreversible and incurable progressive eye condition, rendering her blind. However, not losing sight of her dreams, she started Rising flame in 2017, a non-profit organization, that helps people with disabilities especially women and youngsters in finding a voice for themselves. She is also the country’s first disabled stand-up comedian and uses humor to shatter stereotypes against disabled people.
5.Vidhya Y
Blind since birth, this IIT-B topper co-founded Vision Empower, that encourages and helps other blind people live better lives. Her organization, a provider of learning resources to blind schools in Karnataka since 2018. She personally has created these tutorials on the basis of her research and aims to develop as many softwares as possible for the blind community to ensure ptheir active participation.
6. Remya Raaj
Remya Raaj, is the founder and CEO of Digital arts Academy For The Deaf (DAAD), an EdTech product company that focusses on providing accessible technical education for the deaf across the country, many of whom are below the age of 30. Born deaf, Remya who is from Thiruvananthapuram, has a bachelor’s in economics and has worked as a business analyst in an IT firm before she became an entrepreneur.
There sure are myriad other stories of women that are breaking barriers and setting examples. The above stories are definitely awe-inspiring, and continue to motivate women and especially the younger generation, conveying the message that any disability cannot be more than one’s ability and that the role of a women need not be confined to homes alone.
