Govt starts scouting for best talent for Int’l Abilympics

With just two years left for the 2020 International Abilympics (Olympics of Abilities) slated in China, the Government has started scouting for best talents from across the country to put its best foot forward at the skill-based global event.

The National Abilympic Association of India (NAAI) of the Union Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry and Sarthak Educational Trust, an NGO in collaboration with Skills India under the Union Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship along with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) will be organizing National Abilympic competition in October here.

“We have recently concluded the Regional Abilympics with the support of The Hans Foundation, in four cities - Pune, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Delhi/NCR, assessing the skill set of PwD participants in 10 vocational skill trades under ICT, Crafts and Food for screening the best talent,” said Jitender Aggarwal, Founder & CEO Sarthak Educational Trust.

The best pool will be sent to China for the Abilympics which aims to showcase the vocational abilities and increase participation of the PwD in socio economic activities to ensure ‘inclusive’ society. We are hoping to clinch maximum medals, he said.

Dr Aggarwal elaborated that 10 skill trades under 3 major categories are —ICT/Computers — Data Processing (Basic & Advanced); Word Processing/English Text Processing; Creating Web Pages; Poster Designing; Computer Programming and Photography, Crafts — Embroidery; Waste Reuse and Painting (Colours). The third category is Food — Restaurant Service.

Skill support would be arranged for selected participants through corporate partners and/or training partners, in general,  Aggarwal talked about further strategy.

Aggarwal who is himself from one among the PwDs, strongly believe in economic empowerment of the sector.

To achieve this, the NGO has also been organising job fairs for PwDs all across India, and facilitating employment for PwDs through sensitisation and involvement of corporate groups, with the intent to ensure employment prospects to larger groups of PwDs.

Aggarwal explained that Abilympics (Olympics of Abilities) are vocational skills competitions specifically designed for disabled individuals to enable them to expose their unique talents. The aim is to enrich disabled persons’ lives by training and encouraging them to pursue their utmost potential.

The Abilympics has been coined from the phrase ‘Olympics of Abilities’ and aims at improving the vocational skills of persons with disabilities in order to promote their participation in socio-economic activities.

The first Abilympics competition was held in Tokyo in 1981 to commemorate the United Nations’ International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP). Abilympics now takes place every four years, governed under the International Abilympic Federation, and has been internationally held in Perth, Australia (1995) Prague, The Czech Republic (2000), New Delhi, India (2003), Shizuoka, Japan (2007), Seoul, South Korea (2011), & Bordeaux, France (2016).