The Inclusivity Initiative
OUR IMPACT
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What is the Inclusivity Initiative?
The Inclusivity Initiative is a student-led project launched in early 2024 to make schools more understanding, accepting, and supportive of students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). Through workshops, storytelling, and accessible resources, we help students move beyond “awareness” and actually learn how to communicate, interact, and include meaningfully — not out of sympathy, but respect and allyship.
The Story
What began as a single observation—“They leave the chairs next to me empty”—turned into a school-wide movement for change. While interning with an organization that works with neurodivergent individuals, I realized that the gap in inclusion wasn’t rooted in hostility, but in hesitation. Most students wanted to be inclusive; they simply didn’t know how.
So I created The Inclusivity Initiative, a student-led program built to replace performative inclusion with informed, empathetic allyship. We started with data. A school-wide survey across grades revealed an average comfort score of just 3.2/5 when students were asked if they felt confident interacting with peers with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDDs). This wasn’t rejection—this was uncertainty.
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So I designed an approach.
The Approach
I designed interactive, 1-hour workshops that moved beyond lectures and into lived experience:
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Blindfold challenges to simulate sensory overload
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Cluttered instruction tasks to model executive functioning struggles
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Storytelling through recurring fictional characters to reframe disability not as charity, but as friendship and equal participation
Through these sessions, we reached:
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100+ students at Ryan International (Grades 4–6)
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50+ students at Harmony House, delivered fully in Hindi to ensure accessibility
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120+ students across all Grade 6 sections of The Shri Ram School, Aravali
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Faculty training sessions to extend inclusion beyond student culture
Post-intervention surveys showed a jump from 60% to 86% understanding and comfort levels, with students asking not “how do I help?” but “how do I help respectfully?”
The most meaningful change wasn’t numerical—it was behavioral: students eating lunch with formerly isolated peers, teachers adapting communication approaches, and younger students independently running mini versions of the workshop model. What began as a question about exclusion became a community blueprint for everyday allyship.
