When a person with disabilities is seen around us, most of the times people change their mood, people either get upset or their sensibility seems to be lacking somewhere. Tanushree Sharma, along with her friends Rajneesh Sharma and Krishna Parulkar, has launched LoveActuallyMe with the aim of connecting the Divyang PWD community to the mainstream of the society, boosting their confidence and taking them to new employment opportunities.
LoveActuallyMe has been launched as an initiative aimed at bringing about a behavioral change of people towards PWD (Divyang) community. LoveActuallyMe is an online and offline community to empower and encourage the PWD community.
That’s how it started
In a conversation with BK, Rajneesh spoke about the introduction of LoveActuallyMe.
The mother of the founder of the initiative, Tanushree, had cancer and Rajneesh’s cousin herself had a disease called cerebral palsy, which completely lost her ability to move. Tanu’s mother was in Mumbai, while Rajneesh’s sister was then in Dehradun. According to Rajneesh, Tanu’s mother got a positive atmosphere in Mumbai, while there was nothing like it for her sister in Dehradun.
Rajneesh says
“People’s behavior and feelings towards sister made me think. I did not want anyone to look at him with inferiority due to his illness. “
Rajneesh decided to step forward with the aim of keeping people affected by such physical disabilities in the mainstream of society and keeping them fresh and then joining LoveActuallyMe as a co-founder.
Today an event called Ignite is also organized under this initiative, where people from the PWD community take part in a variety of activities as per their interest.
Coming app
LoveActuallyMe is now preparing to bring a special app for the PWD community, which will help the community overcome many basic problems.
According to Rajneesh, most of the apps that set up social community primarily focus on the general public, but there is no such app that focuses on socializing the PWD community.
They say
“We are working on an app that focuses on socializing PWD, with 70 percent of our focus on the PWD community and 30 percent on the general public.”
Three segments are being added to the app like dating app Bumble, which are socializing, professionalism and community.
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Rajneesh says, “When we see a Divya, our facial expressions change. In such a situation when there is no communication, then we do not know what are the characteristics of that Divyang, which may be better than us in many things. Acceptance increases when people interact and that is our goal.
There is also an idea to help the PWD community in their job search through the app. The app will mainly work to connect the community and job seekers. The goal is to connect this community with everyone on a large and open level through community building, where everyone can share their views and cooperate with each other. The app will also provide a matchmaking facility to the community.
According to Rajneesh, there are many other things in the pipeline with the app, which are planned to be introduced to the community soon.
App revenue
The app is being prepared for the general public as well as the PWD community. The app will be introduced to the public with a subscription model, however, the subscription charge of the app will be significantly lower for the PWD community. The app is still developing and keeping in mind the problems faced by people in other such apps, this app is being prepared with improvements. If Rajneesh is believed, by the end of this year, the app will be revealed to the people.