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MEET Ms SUNSHINE

Photo: Thulasi Kakkat

Full of cheer Sona Jose is full of plans

Sona Jose is a poster child for positive thinking, her joie de vivre hits me like a tonne of bricks as she settles down for a chat. Sona is the co-ordinator for the Team for Achieving Barrier Free Access in the Environment (TABASE) for the physically challenged. Sona is just back from visiting the office of the State Electoral Officer, Nalini Netto, in Thiruvananthapuram, in her quest for barrier-free access at polling booths for the elections, following a recent court ruling that polling booths should be accessible to all.

“We are doing access auditing (auditing the accessibility) of the polling booths in Thiruvananthapuram. There are ramps etc. So far so good!” says an exuberant Sona.

TABASE is her brainchild. Sona Jose, along with a core team of four members got together and formed the organisation in 2007.

“The need is for universal design in architecture, making utilities accessible to all. Buildings of public utility include hospitals and restaurants, road and transport (buses, trains and their terminals) and recreational areas. These should be barrier free, only then can society be inclusive,” says Sona. “Traditionally there are four barriers – attitudinal, architectural, (lack of) information and institutional. These have to be dealt with, suitably,” she says.

She makes a strong case for the rights of the physically challenged, the forgotten people. We all know of the apathy born out of sheer lack of consideration which has confined the differently-abled to the margins of society. What makes Sona Jose tick? Cerebral palsy may have limited her mobility, but her mind is all the more sharper. She lives in a working women’s hostel, and like any other working woman supports herself. Independent is what she is and with a capital I. “I have always wanted to be independent, and not excluded from anything or any activity. With all the awkwardness I can choose to be a candle or a star. It is all God’s grace, I have only one life, I can be sad or happy. And I choose to be happy,” she says. She uses a walker. Wouldn’t a wheelchair be less of a strain? “Why should I use a wheel chair? I have come out of it and I have no intentions of going right back,” she asserts.

This post-graduate in sociology works with Centre for Public Policy Research (CPPR), is a motivational speaker and is the state level co-ordinator of her pet project TABASE. CPPR has absorbed TABASE as part of its ‘Reinventing Cochin’ project. Sona works with a core team comprising Human Right Law Network represented by advocate Resmi Ramesh, P. B. George (secretary for State Council for Exceptional Children) and Joemon C. Joseph (National Association for the Blind).

Sona wants to extend her activities to other parts of the State, “We are now working on starting an association in Thiruvananthapuram and taking things on from there.”

“What we want is not sympathy, which is the most common reaction, we want to be included in mainstream society, it is our right to be included into society. We are/can be educated and employed and be independent too. Then why limit our capabilities? We have a right to live!” she declares, putting a question mark on our prejudices. “Architectural barriers limit people. And I do not mean only persons with disabilities – most places are unfriendly for pregnant women, the aged and very young children too,” she says of her cause.

Each day is a celebration and every experience an exciting adventure. “My faith has taught me that there is a special purpose for each and every person who is born into this world,” she says. And therefore she savours each day, like that day in Veegaland. Her eyes light up and she gets all animated when she recalls that time when two friends took her there, “I had so much fun there. I got on to every ride, almost each and every one of those. What fun!”

Of course it took a lot of convincing of the staff at Veegaland on her part, “but it was worth it at the end of the day. In Bangalore there is a barrier-free entertainment park called ‘Kili Kili;’ it was fun there too!” Getting to Bangalore or for that matter even travelling is a Herculean task but that is for ordinary mortals like you and me. “It is not that tough, I take the help of the wheel chair attendant, once I am put into the train then from there it is all right. Getting down is easy. There is no other go.”

Hailing from Angamaly, she is the oldest of three siblings. “I told my parents, ‘with you I am like a queen. But one day, I have to be on my own,’ and sent them packing to Canada when my sister was pregnant.” Sona was associated with Raksha special school as an assistant social worker of which she has fond memories.

That brings us to special schools. Sona studied in a regular school, in an inclusive kind of atmosphere. “I am of the view that the intellectually fit but physically disabled, or the visually challenged or the deaf should not be isolated in special schools. In a regular school there should be a teacher for Braille or sign language, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has provisions for that. Why not use that? Of course for certain cases special schools are the only option.”

She refuses to take credit for anything she has achieved. “All the people that I have been associated with, my parents, my siblings, Raksha School, the Corporation Secretary, Mini Antony, the Rotary Club of Cochin which funds the access auditing, last but not least CPPR. There are so many people who have helped in this task. I could not have done anything on my own.”

Barrier free access in public transport (buses and trains) is close to her heart. “Delhi Transport Corporation buses and BEST buses in Mumbai have it, then why not KSRTC?” Some suggestions:

Low floor height for ease in boarding the bus.

A temporary removable ramp for the wheelchair- bound.

Doors wide enough for a wheelchair.

Space for a wheelchair.

Audio-visual signals (for the hearing impaired and the visually challenged).

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