Rotary Delhi Mid Town helps Paralympic hopefuls with equipment

In the Paris 2024 Paralympics, Indian athletes will compete across 12 sports.

Rotary Delhi Mid Town provides Paralympic athletes with much needed equipment / ImageCourtesy: RotaryClubofDelhiMidTown/X

Hopes are high in the Indian diaspora as the largest-ever para-contingent of 84 athletes from India head out to the field in the 2024 Paralympics in Paris today.

In the Paris 2024 Paralympics, Indian athletes will compete across 12 sports. A lot of preparation and support is needed to get to this stage, says Dr Deepa Malik, the first Indian woman to win a medal in the Paralympic Games and the only Indian woman to win medals in 3 consecutive Asian Para Games (2010, 2014, 2018).

An athlete with a disability needs support in the form of equipment, attendants, transportation, etc to make it.

“A lot of funds are required when a person with disability competes and that is where Rotary Club of Delhi Midtown helps. They held my hand in 2011 and 2012 which resulted in the medals that I have brought for my country,” said Dr Malik as she high-fived polio-afflicted children and para-athletes at Delhi’s Imperial Hotel gifting wheelchairs to them. E-rickshaws were gifted to the athletes to battle the challenges of end-to-end accessibility.

She looked back to the time when at the age of 35 she found herself paralyzed waist downward. “I started playing at the age of 36 after getting paralyzed. In 2000 I came to Delhi to play in the Commonwealth Games. Till the time the Paralympic Committee got the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS), we had our struggles with stay arrangements, equipment arrangements, and transportation arrangements.”

To improve India’s performance at the Olympics and Paralympics, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) started the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) in September 2014. The Mission Olympic Cell is a dedicated body created to assist the athletes who are selected under the TOP Scheme.

Accompanying her in the distribution of wheelchairs and e-rickshaws was Rotarian Raman Bhatia managing trustee of Rotary Ghulam Naqshband Institute for the Physically Challenged (RGNIPC).

The trust was created to support those affected by polio and other physically challenged children and to ensure full rehabilitation for them. “Rtn Naqshband left all his wealth to the cause,” said Bhatia

With Rotary Dr Malik is working on many projects, including rehabilitation, nutrition and diet, and wheelchairs for the athletes.

“The para movement in India is gathering speed. Every athlete from the grassroots needs support. When I was a beginner Rotary Midtown gave me world-class javelins with which I went on to make 3 Asian records,” said Dr. Malik.

The plan for the future is to rehabilitate patients as well as socially integrate them post-injury, especially those afflicted with paralysis, helping them manage the trauma a disabled person goes through and encouraging them to join sports.

Deepa Malik is the Asian Paralympic Committee representative for South Asia. Dr. Malik won a silver medal at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in the shot put and gold in the F-53/54 Javelin event at the para athletic Grand Prix held in Dubai in 2018.

An Arjuna Award winner in 2012, at the age of 42 years.[She has also been conferred the prestigious Padma Shri award in 2017. She created a New Asian Record in the Asian Para Games 2018.

She held up the V sign for victory as the para-athletes wheeled themselves around and took selfies with her.