Bangalore: Hephzibah Dorothy - the Woman who Turned Impossible into Possible

Report and pics from Jessie Rodrigues
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore (MB)

Bangalore, Apr 22: There are persons in our society who may face adversities in life. Many among them may face such adversities boldly as a challenge. There are still others who not only successfully overcome the difficulties but also help others to do similarly.

One such rare individual is Hephzibah Dorothy, founder-executive director of 'The New Horizon Trust for the Disabled', functioning in Bangalore since 1999.

Daughter of G P Prabhakar, a retired officer of the public sector BEML and the late Ratna of Chamaraja Nagar, Dorothy is an Arts graduate. She is the youngest of 3 children and is a descendent of the late K T Paul, who was the first south Indian to accompany Mahatma Gandhi to take part in the First Round Table Conference hel in 1931 in the Buckingham Palace, London. The late Paul had also addressed many youth from the Ramakrishna Math in 1927

In spite of being a victim of polio since childhood, Dorothy took it as a challenge to overcome all obstacles in life by adopting a positive attitude. She has taken it upon herself with a strong determination and has succeeded in making a difference in the lives of the other physically-challenged persons.

"The lives of persons with disability are hard all over the world, especially in India, where lives are harder for there is little support for the disabled people from the government," Dorothy  says. With these thoughts in mind, a vision took birth in her heart to help and uplift such people.

Her vision  is to improve the lives of persons with disability to realize their potential and become active contributors to the community rather than being just passive receptionists. Her dream is to promote the mobility and economic independence of physically-challenged persons, so that they can live their lives to the fullest
in society.

Thus the seed for "The New Horizon Trust For The Disabled" was planted in her heart.

Dorothy has won the following honours:

• On March 8, 2005 The International Woman's Day
• On January 30, 2006 she was honoured the Jai Prakash Narayan Memorial Award
• On March 19, 2006, Karnataka Padmashri Award
• On April 30, 2006 Basaveshwara Award in Gadag

Besides, she has been felicitated by the many other social organizations for her work in the field of social work.

The goals of the New Horizon Trust are as follows:

•To create awareness about disability in order to bring about attitudinal change.
•To promote pre-vocational and vocational education and training to create useful skills in the disabled to make them self–supporting.
•To support action-oriented research to promote physical, social, psychological and medical rehabilitation of disabled.
•To generate employment opportunities for people with disabilities, both in cash and in kind. They act as a bridge between the need of the disabled and resources available in the community.
•Since its inception, the Trust has been focusing mainly on physically challenged persons. But in the near future, they would like to extend their services to other kinds of disability such as visually, speech and hearing impaired.

Summary of the functions of the Trust:

The  New Horizon Trust has grown from a mere idea to a resource centre. Through its activities the Trust has reached out to 400 persons with disabilities  since its inception . It was started with a vision  to provide  a platform  for persons  with disability  to achieve  their inherent though often hidden potential  through  a holistic  approach by providing them with necessary mobility aids, support  services like physiotherapy , counseling services , assistance and guidance for  vocational education and job placement .

This trust over the years has built a network with other organizations working in the disability sector and collaborates with those organizations in providing the necessary assistance to people with disability.

The center also promotes handicraft products made by people with disability and thus enabling them to become self-reliant by participating in exhibitions and undertaking product orders from various corporate offices.

The Trust Offers Training To the Physically Challenged in Handicrafts, Computer training & spoken English courses.

The trust distributed 500 free wheel chairs for the disabled persons at a special programme held on the 20th of January 2006 in rural areas.

Future plan:

While talking to Daijiworld correspondent, Dorothy unveiled her future plans of starting the residential care for the challenged persons to provide vocational training to gain self confidence, to be independent & to lead a respectful life in the society.