post news network
Bhubaneswar, Sept 7: About 100 people with spinal cord injuries took out a rally, ‘Walk for the Cause’, from Lower PMG Square to Master Canteen here Wednesday to create awareness on spinal cord injuries. September 5 was recently announced as the International day for spinal cord injury and city based non-profit organisation Swabhimaan organised the walk to celebrate the day.
The participants raised slogans and displayed placards with messages to create awareness about spinal cord injury. They also held a candle light vigil later.
Volunteers from educational institutions such as BJB Autonomous College, Biju Patnaik College of Social Work, UN Autonomous College, Odaspur, Institute of Media Studies, and Ravenshaw University also participated.
Shruti Mohapatra, the founder of Swabhimaan, said: “This is the first time a day has been declared for creating awareness about spinal cord injuries. Spinal cord injuries are on the rise today primarily because of road accidents. Such injuries have no cure and once you meet with an accident, the injury can cause paralysis.
Through this awareness programme, we want to tell people that it is important to take preventive measures and to tell the society that we may be disabled but are no less than anyone. We wanted to tell the society, we may be physically disabled but we are mentally capable of anything.”
Sushree Sarangi, a house surgeon who was confined to a wheelchair following an accident, was one of the participants. “I was paralysed after an accident in 2012. I have learned since that more than 95 per cent of people are unaware about spinal cord injuries. The spinal cord is the biggest nerve in the body, and once it is damaged it is really hard to regenerate and takes time. To keep the spine safe, one has to be very careful, because consequences of such injury are difficult to handle,” she said.
Sushree says that people suffering from spinal cord injuries should not lose hope and should keep themselves motivated. “We are not disabled; we are differently abled. It is hard for us to do things that other people can do easily; but we can do these although differently from normal people,” she avers.
