SUPPORT CIRCLE: A self-help group of the disabled in session

Huddled together in a tight circle, they make an unusual gathering. Sarat Jena is deaf and dumb. Mita Swain is mentally challenged. Gagan Mallick is visually impaired. Ratnakar Sahu is polio-stricken. That is not what makes the meeting unusual. But the fact that they are discussing how enabled they now are. They wax eloquent about their new-found vocations, celebrating the fact that despite the odds, they could now stand tall and grasp their destinies with their own hands.

"I feel so free," gushes Sahu who is all set to open a poultry farm with a loan of Rs 7,000. Part of a self-help group in Ersama in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district, it hardly matters to him that he can only crawl with his deformed legs. As he has learnt over the past few years, standing on his own feet is another matter altogether.

Jena has put up a cow shed and is planning to buy two cows. Mallick is growing betel vine. With nothing but the future in their minds, they now wonder what had taken them so long to do what they are doing now.

The credit for their new-found confidence goes to a clutch of social activists who have helped form the self-help group. And theirs is not the only one. A dozen such groups have come up in Ersama and Balikuda blocks. With hundreds of disabled people in the state waiting for a helping hand, the expectations from these self-help groups are enormous.

It all started when international agencies like Action Aid set up base in Orissa after the supercyclone in 1999. The NGOs were asked to identify vulnerable groups in the worst-hit areas. It was during this process that the disabled in Ersama and Balikuda were shortlisted, and then organised into self-help groups. Action Aid provided the corpus fund from the Livelihood Programme, sponsored by British funding agency, the

Department for International Development, under which the enterprises for the disabled were set up. "This is a novel effort that raises a lot of hope," says Smruti Mohapatra of Swabhiman, one of the NGOs that is involved in the programme.

Unlike other self-help bands in Orissa and elsewhere, these groups have a free and open style of functioning. There is no gender bias-men and women are on an equal footing-nor is there any restriction on the categories of the disabled who can join. All are welcome even those carrying social stigma, like leprosy patients. In fact, the groups work on the basic premise that the cross-disability factor, bringing people with various physical impediments together, lends a feeling of oneness among them as they live and work in a relatively less disparate environment. This also helps in their integration into the mainstream much easier. "The cross-disability self-help groups in Balikuda and Ersama are surely milestones," says Blorin Mohanty of the Bharat Gyan Bigyan Samiti, a social organisation that is working in the region.

The results are beginning to show. Swain, who is mentally challenged, did not talk to anyone, even to her family members, earlier. But today she is an active member of the group: she eagerly sticks out the guest register to the visitors for their comments on the group. "We complement each other," says Kalyani Khatua, who walks with a pronounced limp. Some insensitive villagers still taunt her for her gait, but her standing in the neighbourhood has never been higher. One of the founding members of the group, Khatua owns a grocery shop, which she started with a loan of Rs 20,000. Her earnings of Rs 50 a day is perhaps more than what any one in her family makes.

As Sonali Patnaik of Swabhiman says, it is ultimately a question of getting empowered. Budding entrepreneurs all, the members of the self-help groups have a sense of purpose in their lives now.

It is a big achievement in a state like Orissa, which has been far from sympathetic to the plight of the disabled: the state Government, as in some other states, is yet to set up a commission for the disabled. A co-ordination committee that was set up for the betterment of the disabled was dissolved before it even met. Amidst such institutional apathy the groups have got other tasks. They are trying to sensitise the public, like insensitive bank officials, who refuse to entertain leprosy patients who want to open accounts for fear of contracting the disease.

Like Jena, Swain and Mallick, the members of the self-help groups are prepared not only to take on their physical and mental handicaps but social prejudices as well. And overcome them all.