Meet the ambassadors from Chennai working for an accessible elections

Disablity ambassadors selected by Greater Chennai Corporation are trying to work out access audits for all polling stations in Chennai along with the Differently-abled Welfare Office under the GCC. Here’s how people with diverse disablity are working to create more awareness

Raghuraman Kalyanraman

honorary advisor, Karna Vidhya Foundation

Professor Raghuraman, a faculty in the Department of English at Government College of Arts in Nandanam, has already begun working with visually-challenged students to see if they have had any difficulty getting their voter’s ID card. Raghuraman is also visually-challenged. He shows them how to gain access to a tactile map to understand the location of the polling booths.

He continues to appeal to the Election Department to upload a readable version of Form 12D. The professor is planning a meet-up with students and parents to brief them about their meeting their responsibility, which is to vote.

D. Gnana Bharathi

founder, Spinal Injured Persons Association

As a wheelchair user, Gnana Bharathi has been vocal about the need for accessibility for persons with disabilities. Common pain points at polling booths a missing foot rest of the wheelchair or a broken armrest. Every polling booth is supposed to have at least two wheelchairs in place, but if the wheelchairs carry these faults, having them hardly helps.