New Delhi, July 9 (IANS): People with disabilities (PwD) often face discrimination in India, but the Sarthak Educational Trust aims to change that. To this end, it organised the Regional Abilympics, the north zone leg of which concluded here recently.

The two-day event was intended to assess the skill set of PwD participants in 10 vocational skill trades under ICT, Crafts and Food for screening the best talent.

Jitender Aggarwal, Founder & CEO Sarthak Educational Trust; MB Athreya, Sarthak Mentor & Guru; and Krishan Kalra, President NAAI, attended the event, which concluded on June 30, alongwith several other high-ranked officials.

Inclusion, Empowerment, and Mainstreaming of Persons with disability is the guiding principle of Sarthak Educational Trust.

On the occasion, Sarthak successfully trained 9,500 and placed 12500 PwD's across 17 locations pan-India namely Delhi, Chandigarh, Gurugram, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Jaipur (2), Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Ambala, Bhopal, Kolkata, Faridabad, West Delhi and Ghaziabad with the support of National Skill Development Corporation, Tech Mahindra Foundation, Cognizant Foundation, Capgemini India Private Limited, Mahindra Finance and various other agencies.

Speaking at the event, Aggrawal said: "We are thankful to all the participants and corporate firms who supported us in this initiative."

"After successfully achieving our targets in the East, West and South zone, we are very excited to host the last legs of the Regional Abilympics in the capital," he added.

Started in 2008, the inspiration behind Sarthak was the struggle faced by Aggarwal himself. He was a practicing dentist when in 2004 he started losing his central vision due to macular degeneration of the retina resulting in only partial vision.

The first batch, which included eight people with visual impairment, was trained in Delhi. The batch was trained in medical transcription and employment prospects were also explored and provided to them.

Thereafter, team Sarthak started 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.

Considering the pressing concerns of early prevention, identification, and intervention, Sarthak also started delivering free and quality services through its Early Intervention centre in Delhi.