Lakshay Singhal

When life doesn’t seem fair, when everything you touch seems to crumble before your eyes, what do you do? Do you shout and scream? Do you crawl in the darkest corner of your room and cry? Or do you fight back, forget what has happened and start again? Rewind back to 2004 when Dr. Jitender Aggarwal’s life and career, took a completely different turn. He started losing his vision due to a non-treatable concern- Macular Degeneration of retina and suddenly his career and life came to a halt. But he knew he can’t sit and mope. "My vision was diminishing, but I kept on believing - it is the challenges only that strengthen you." Says Dr. Aggarwal. He learnt medical transcription and tried working out on everything that would come to his knowledge to support his family. One day, a thought dawned on him. "Weren't there, many others like me grappling with many disabilities? I had some kind of financial backup, several others didn't. Couldn’t I help a few others pick up what I was doing? People gave them charity, some even trained them but no one empowered them find sustainable jobs". On his quest to break barriers, Dr. Jitender Aggarwal founded Sarthak Educational Trust for people with disabilities in July 2008, with the aim of making lives of persons with disabilities Sarthak (successful), enabling them to become Masters of their own Destiny and finding its own success in theirs. It wasn’t an over-night thought, but a combination of personal loss and empathy towards fellow people with disabilities. As in his wife, Dr. Suman Aggarwal’s words- “With Adversity comes an opportunity”, and our founder made sure to mold it in the best way possible. Since last 14 years, Sarthak is committedly working for the people with disabilities, their families and communities to create sustainable change and make an inclusive India with equal dignity & respect for Divyangjans. Today we can say that Sarthak is a young yet successful NGO working towards mainstreaming Persons with disability.