Throughout India, people with disabilities are being excluded or hidden from society. Their basic human rights are ignored and they are often subject to physical an mental abuse. They are not given the opportunity to show that they can be productive members of society.

Milita, meaning inclusion, is a relatively new activity that was initiated in 2001-02. In a discussion on the "future course of action" of the Collective, held in mid-2001, members were unanimous in voicing their interest in taking up the cause of the disabled in their working areas. The cadres, though working on other projects, took this up as additional responsibility.

As a follow up, a survey conducted at this time identified about 400 people with disability in the three mandals where the Collective works. This coincided with Mr. B. Venkatesh (Board member of the Collective) shifting to Timbaktu. Mr. Venkatesh has considerable experience in working with people with disabilities, particularly in promoting self-advocacy groups. He organised an initial five-day training programme for the Timbaktu Panchayati. A number of resource persons were involved in this intensive training programme.

After the training programme, the cadres conducted a few case studies and organised a few sanghas of disabled people. Couple of helth camps were also organised and individual cadre began training the disabled people to do normal tasks at home.

Meanwhile, the Collective decided to look for suitable individuals who would take up this work as a full time responsibility as the regular cadre of the Collective were finding it difficult to cope.

One of the senior team members of the Collective was sent to Mobility India for an intensive training in rehabilitation of Physically disabled persons. Six others were selected and sent for training programme conducted by VELUGU, a Govt of AP undertaking.

These trainees have started work in the field and the have been conducting case studies and organising the sanghas. Individual trainees have been helping in physio - therapy and training the disabled people to do normal tasks at home. Two young children were admitted into a Govt run blind school in Hindupur.

The Collective, meanwhile, has been trying to raise funds from appropriate donors for this programme.

Up until now the Collective has been doing this work on its own steam with a lot of voluntary support from Mr. Venkatesh and other friends. Some individuals/friends have contributed to the training of some cadres. VELUGU, a Govt of AP effort, has been conducting training programmes for their disability cadres and they have been kind enough to train the cadre of the Collective as well.