Different Art Centre unveils Magik Homes project to build accessible homes for people with disabilities

Different Art Centre (DAC), which empowers young adults with special needs through a variety of innovative programs, is venturing into a new initiative that would help people with disabilities get a home of their own.  

DAC’s new venture ‘MAGIK Homes – Making Accessible Gateways for Inclusive Kerala’ will strive towards providing accessible homes for people with disabilities who do not have any land or home of their own. A model of the new homes was unveiled by Padma Vibhushan Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Patron-DAC and internationally acclaimed filmmaker, at a press conference organized at the Thiruvananthapuram Press Club. Jiji Thomson IAS, Chairman, DAC and former Chief Secretary, Government of Kerala, Hariraj M R, Director, DAC and Senior Advocate, High Court, Kerala, Manoj Ottapalam, Engineer, and Gopinath Muthukad, Executive Director, DAC, were present at the press conference.

DAC’s new philanthropic initiative will initially build 14 accessible homes - one home in each district - for identified persons with disabilities from marginalized socio-economic conditions. Like what is seen in foreign nations, each home will be custom-built, in accordance with the special needs of the beneficiary. Houses will be built with special facilities for different categories of differently-abled people. For instance, visually impaired persons or persons with multiple disabilities will be given houses that are constructed in a manner that they are custom-made as per their limitations. 

The fact that disability and poverty reinforce each other, thus contributing to increased vulnerability and exclusion, has led DAC to think along the lines of constructing homes for people with disabilities. 

Magik Homes project will see to it that the beneficiaries would be those persons with disabilities who do not own land anywhere in the country. The project will also take into account families in which more than one member has any kind of disability with a disability percentage of more than seventy.  The project will also consider families as beneficiaries if the parents of persons with disabilities are restricted from going out of the home to find livelihoods because of the high support needs at home; if the family member with disability is suffering from any other co-morbidity, and if a family has significant financial liabilities due to providing care and health services for the member with disability. Besides these, priority will also be accorded to single mothers of children with disabilities. 

To raise funds for the construction of houses under the Magik Homes project, various shows including art shows led by artists of the Different Art Centre and events by other prominent artists will be planned. For more information, contact 9447768535 / 9446078535.