SriLankan Cares steers ‘Disability Is Possibility’ campaign

Wednesday, 7 August 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Maliq Deane, a former SriLankan Crew member, sharing his experience with the UL staff

SriLankan Cares, the community welfare arm of SriLankan Airlines recently conducted a series of programs on disability awareness for their staff themed ‘Disability Is Possibility’. This is an awareness campaign which focuses on changing the attitudes of the society towards those impaired at birth or later in life by circumstances beyond their control. The recently concluded program was in the form of an inspirational dialog where Maliq Deane, a former SriLankan Crew member, shared his and his wife Angie’s (also a former SriLankan Crew member) experiences following the birth of their son, Stefan, a differently-abled child. He

explained how they faced the challenge of bringing up a child for whom the medical experts predicted less than 48 hours of life. Today, a 21 year old Stefan, with the support of his parents, has disproven the medical prophecy. Maliq also stressed the need for an attitudinal shift from sympathy to empathy with regard to those differently abled, pointing out that as the staff of the national carrier; the participants have great responsibility towards differently abled passengers. According to United Nations agencies, approximately 1.4 million people in Sri Lanka have a disability of some kind, which is about 7% of the country’s population. Even though the public is aware of the possible causes of disability such as war and accidents, stigmatising those with disabilities has hardly seen a downward trend. Hence, there is a need to raise public awareness on the empathising and recognising them to be a part of society whose existence and happiness is as important as those who do not have disabilities. SriLankan Cares expects to organise similar awareness campaigns and charity events in the near future in order to raise funds for the differently-abled children of the country as part of this project.