Here Is An App To Help People With Disabilities

Empowering people with disabilities calls for a broad range of socio-economic inclusions and the Indian government is currently amending the Disability Act of 1995 to meet the norms of the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. The country has an estimated 40-45 million such people according to provisional figures of 2011 Census, but spends only 0.0009% of its GDP on disability, which indicates low access to education, information, job market and other essential facilities.

Since easy access to critical and specific information can immensely help people with disabilities, a Delhi-based NGO called Cross the Hurdles has launched the first-ever android app a couple of days ago to bridge the knowledge gap. Named after the organisation, the new app is an information resource containing everything one needs to know about special education, career guidance, employment opportunities, tax benefits, health tips, legal advice, assistive technology, accessibility and more. Simply put, you can find all relevant information here – be it schools for autistic children, libraries for the visually impaired, shops for buying disability aids & equipment or blood banks in your locality. The app can be downloaded for free from Google Play Store and the organisation will soon launch the iOS and Windows versions of the app.

In the next phase, there will be a number of in-app features including video conferencing, on-demand sessions with experts, disability counselling services and chat forums. The app will be always free for users although the NGO, led by Abha Khetarpal, is looking to raise money through sponsorship and advertising.

To download Cross the Hurdles, you will require Android 2.3.3 or up. Last we checked, the rating stood at 4.8 and installs between 10 and 50. But that is understandable since the app has been launched only a couple of days ago.