ONGC has funded sports wheelchairs and advanced prosthetic limbs for Goa Para TT athletes through The Tinkesh Ability Foundation. The Goa-based, Tinkesh Ability Foundation has been working in various initiatives to empower People with Disabilities.
Para athletes often face insurmountable obstacles in their pursuit of sports. One of the biggest being, accessibility to advanced mobility aids, like artificial limbs and lightweight sports wheelchairs, due to their formidable cost.
Tinkesh Kaushik, one of the founders of TAF, a triple amputee himself has lived the experience of inaccessibility to advanced prosthetics to pursue his ambition of becoming a para-athlete. This among other challenges faced by him, led to the inception of TAF.
The Para Athletes of Goa who play wheelchair sports expressed a need to TAF for lightweight sports wheelchairs during a tournament last year. In view of their excellence in various wheelchair sports, TAF approached ONGC for the funds through their CSR initiative, for wheel chairs and prosthetics for these para-athletes.
Dharmanna Kuri, Stany D’Souza, Mahesh Pagadala, Vishant Nagvekar & Moises Rodrigues, who are all medallists in para sports received the wheelchairs at the hands of the Minister for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities and Disability Commissioner, Guruprasad Pawaskar.
Riteish a para-TT player and marathoner received
an advanced prosthetic limb. Present at the handing over ceremony was Varsha Naik – Director DEPwD and the Core Management Team of Tinkesh Ability foundation. The event was attended by the beneficiaries & representatives from ONGC.
The Tinkesh Ability Foundation also runs a Mental Health initiative, that provides counselling to PwDs and their caretakers and Inclusive Fitness & Inclusive Outdoors for PwDs.
