Soroptimist International Pune Metro East promote health equity for persons with disabilities

Soroptimist International Pune Metro East promote gealth equity for persons with disabilities
The International Day of Disabled Persons celebrated on 3rd December each year aims to promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society and development. This year, the theme is “Amplifying the leadership of persons with disabilities for an inclusive and sustainable future”.
To facilitate the meaningful engagement of persons with disabilities in line with human rights based approaches, a dental health and hygiene awareness program was organized on 9th December by Soroptimist International of Pune Metro East, a women’s NGO working for creating enabling opportunities and empowerment of women in girls through education opportunities. Anjaly Banarji, a reputed International Baccalaureate education consultant and President of SI Pune Metro East designed a Dental health and hygiene awareness program that brought together 106 students from preparatory and middle stage( 5-8 classes) of Maharashtra fellowship for Deaf and The Lillian School,a CBSE school in Mohammadwadi Pune, to participate jointly in an interactive session on Dental health and hygiene by paedodontist Dr.Kanupriya Choudhary and translators using sign language. Anita Thamburaj, past president of Army wives welfare association AWWA and a volunteer Soroptimist presented a floral bouquet to the speaker of the day.

Besides educating students and staff members about the structure of teeth, their types, functions, importance,oral hygiene and the importance of a balanced diet, a pop- up quiz on teeth facts and some trivia on fascinating teeth facts in the animal kingdom were introduced to the students by Soroptimist Asha Srinivass and Tara
Ganapathy. Students were pleasantly surprised to learn that a snail is the living animal with the most teeth with some species having more than 25,000! “We are aligning all our education programs for girls in particular with the National education policy 2024 to focus on enhancing social inclusion and cohesion and also addressing UN’s sustainable development goal 4: quality education for all.” said Anjaly Banarji.
Dental kits were distributed to everyone.
Tara Meshramkar, principal of Maharashtra fellowship for Deaf thanked the speaker and members of SI Pune Metro East for their dedicated service for advancing health equity for all and building a more inclusive and sustainable future.