In a recent conversation with a group of young students with visual impairment, I once again got the confirmation that if you are born with a disability or you become disable throughout your life, your chances at success are minimal.

It is a phenomenon that is more accentuated in a country like Nepal, but at the same time it is manifesting everywhere else around the world. The general concept of reasonable accommodation, a very practical and, I would say, reasonable principle that demands the society to do whatever it is possible to support and accommodate persons with disabilities has never been fully understood.Buildings, if you notice, keep rising up without ramps; the school system is not adapting to the needs of students with disabilities; the job market is far from inclusive.

Perhaps, we should run workshops and awareness programmes exclusively on the concept of reasonable accommodation, trying to create a critical mass among the general population about the importance of a society that makes an effort to be more inclusive.Sadly, exclusion is a key feature of local society, and as we well know it is not only about disability but also about many other vulnerable groups that struggle to emerge and have their voice heard.

I have been writing pieces like this since many years, but not much has been changing. Every time I interact with young people with disabilities, I am struck by their positivity and resilience but also a certain pragmatism that they have to live with in order to survive. I mean the pragmatism that comes from the self-awareness that your options are frankly limited, and therefore you master the art of 'making do', which is 'to manage to live without things that you would like to have or with things of a worse quality than you would like'.

Unfortunately, if you are blind or if you are from a Dalit community, you end up (and you are forced to) being a champion on 'making do'. As a consequence, you really have to embrace a type of pragmatism that actually comes from the resignation that your shots at life are not as many as your peers.

I frankly hate this type of pragmatism, and I always try to push it back. Who am I to dissuade a high potential youth who lives at the margin of the society from making certain choices that, in other life circumstances, she would not even consider? Yet I find it almost irresistible pushing back, trying to make the case that, while it is undeniable that the pathway ahead is very rough and bumpy, still the same person could become the person she really wants to become.

At the same time, I have come to learn to respect this type of pragmatism because, in reality, it is the only way forward if you come from a vulnerable group. I hope that this 'downward' pragmatism could become an 'upward' type of realism that instead of focusing on limitations and narrow options, leverages, step by step, an increasingly more open pathway for the future.

This is what a society in a country like Nepal should aspire for. After all, what does it mean to graduate from a least developing country towards a future that could turn the country into a lower middle economy? I believe, like many others, that this jump in international status should be accompanied by also a change in people's mindsets.

Despite the ongoing struggles in the national economy that are quite worrisome, the future of Nepal could really be bright. Yet it should be bright not just for the few but for all. Equality and equity are hard words to get and certainly provoke some discomfort and uneasiness, but we need to really deal with them if we really want Nepal to graduate and become an attractive place to live.

Recently another of our volunteers at ENGAGE, an NGO promoting social inclusion, left for Australia.

By no means was his life not as complicated nor challenging as the young students with visual impairment I had met. Still he was feeling compelled to go to study in Australia, but we knew that 'studying in Australia' has become a substitute for 'migrating to Australia'.

I had many volunteers, all brilliant and very capable who followed the same trajectory. Any time I hear their stories, I also feel compelled to push back the narrative that life in Australia is necessarily better than a life here.

While I can't do anything about personal choices, still these whole situations truly irritate me. Inevitability is a concept I never embraced, and have always fought against. I sincerely believe that nothing as such is inevitable in life, but I also recognise that the destiny was very good on me, and I have to accept that for many others, that was not the case.

A change in the mindset that the country should aspire to would imply a commitment from all segments of the society to do whatever they can to create a viable pathway of success for all the youths of the country.

Systemic change can also happen bit by bit. It can take place in the form of a new crop of young professionals ditching their careers to change the politics of the nation; it can take the shape of an innovative scholarship programme targeting the most vulnerable youths, or it can also take the shape of a national business house doing its bit to train high potential youths from marginalised groups. As long as you have a vision, you can deploy a full range of options to achieve it. Real development cannot happen without equity and equality, and no real 'graduation' can happen without both of them. Each of us, including you the reader, have a responsibility towards changing the status quo.

I wish that soon I will be in the middle of a conversation with blind and Dalit and other marginalised students where I hear about their dreams and the determination they are going to use to achieve them rather than hearing about their limitations and lack of opportunities. Everyone can do her bit to ensure that this imaginary scenario became a reality.

A version of this article appears in the print on May 25, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.