My name is Shubham Bansal, I am a person with Spastic Cerebral Palsy. I am pursuing my bachelors from the University of Delhi. I love to draw, listen to music and write blogs. I completed my 10 + 2 from Springdales School, Pusa Road.
Cerebral palsy is a disorder which affects a person’s ability to move and maintain proper balance. Travelling independently was always a challenge for me. I was not able to go shopping, have fun in amusement parks or enjoy visiting monuments in Delhi. After passing out of school, my life took a turn.
For my college admissions, I visited Action For Ability Development and Inclusion (AADI). In my interaction with my teachers, my teachers told me that I should start travelling independently. I was not mentally prepared yet to travel independently. Seeing this, my teacher had a separate session with me and my parents telling me that sooner or later, I have to become independent. We had many sessions on how can I travel alone without anybody’s help. After preparing me mentally for my independence, now the next step was how to implement it. For the first few weeks, my parents and the staff from AADI trained me and accompanied me in my travelling.
After some time, I started travelled independently to AADI through the cab, that was the first step towards my independence. That was the day when I felt like a grown-up for the first time. Now I can go to my relatives’ house and come to AADI independently. Travelling alone in a cab with just the driver sitting next to you is such a great feeling!. When I became confident and had enough experience of travelling through a cab. I wanted to try something new. My next goal was to travel independently by Delhi Metro. It was more challenging going to the metro station with my stuff alone, as compared to travelling in a cab.
I discussed it with my teacher. She told me that I should take some experience of travelling in the metro with helpers. I began travelling in the metro. The helpers who were with me told me about the metro route and stations and how to take help of metro staff if needed. In the beginning, I used the normal wheelchair for travelling, then after some time, I began using my walker. From there onwards, I began travelling independently without anybody’s help.