I hope you all are doing good in this pandemic time, please take care of yourself and be safe.
In this post am going to talk about my fellow local guide @Tejal ma’am and her dedication towards the accessibility community, she indeed inspiration to many other local guides.
What made me write this shout out post is her work, I have been on this connect platform since Nov 2016, I have seen many local guides contributing their part to build a better place for everyone. But as much as India is concerned, accessibility is yet to be develop a lot more here, maybe it’s because most of them are from rural areas, and total percentage as of now is 2.21%.
For me true accessibility champion is someone who not only put an information on maps but also make an effort to connect with them, which @Tejal ma’am has been doing, I don’t know I have never did a shout out to any local guide so far, but her work and dedication made me to do one, this post is completely personal and indeed I believe we should always appreciate a work which we feel is worthy.
I have been attending her accessibility meetups, which are way more than just a meetup, I never knew anything about special people before, In fact it’s rare where I stay, her meetups are inspirational and also informative, she not only focus on accessibility but also on E-waste.
The above all meetups links seems like she has been doing a lot of work for Community, She is always going to be a true accessible Champion in my perspective. being Indian I know what she is doing is not at all normal or something which everyone can do!! that’s need time and efforts
Wonderful post @Arati ! Yes , @Tejal ben has done amazing meet-ups and she really inspires me to do accessibility work at ground level too. She has been associated with blind schools for a long time , her work is amazing and I always attend her meet-ups as they are educative too! She has always been supportive to me and my first meet-up was with her so she will always be special A shout out from my end too Thanks for sharing this post !
Felt really happy by reading this post. Only a beautiful heart can truly appreciate others. Thank you so much @Arati for sharing this.
I totally understand when you said as an Indian, what @Tejal ma’am is doing is not normal. It requires high dedication and so much hard work. She deserves a huge shout-out for her work. So many special children and people are getting her help everyday. Hat’s off to Tejal ma’am
We’ve both been acquainted with each other for the last several years and I can proudly say that she has been working really hard for people with disabilities.
Beautiful, well said as teacher I can we teacher due our duty sincerely not for name & fame but it’s our duty & noble job. I remember in one of her meet up she introduced me as teacher , one student Krishna who can’t see but remember my name. In another meet up that child asked where is rosy mam I felt nice so sweet of him… In meet up when I saw @Tejal how she working hard with kids.specially with God gifted children ( Disabled child). Next day I spoke to tejal want to know how she help disabled kids she explained I was impressed… Pray to God bless her with lots of success.
Thank you so much for giving me this respect. I am glad. as per me accessibility is adding information on the maps and educating the people on how to use technology. many handicapped people are doing business and working as per their knowledge. I wish I can visit more cities in India and start education for the blind and specially-abled person.
@Arati as you stay in Hyderabad can we visit for the online tour of your city during my next class
“virtual tour of google maps Hyderabad”
Regards Tejal
P.S. for this initiative my strong support is @NareshDarji and @rajuroyal we had the first meet-up at blind school Valsad with my Gujarat Local Guide Team. @PriyankaU@RoshanPatel@user_not_found
While many other accessibility Champions visited a couple of places & published posts in LG Connect, our @Tejal did the ACTUAL FIELD WORK of Guiding Dozens of handicapped children, very regularly - almost every week.
Unfortunately, Google/LG Connect do not have system to grab this information.
So, while I appreciate you for this shout put, Arati, I tag our @DeniGu to attend this matter & escalate it to the concerned authority.
Dear Deni, as of now, Indian LG Community activities are going extremely slow as GENUINE LEADERS like @AmbrishVarshney (& many others) have lost interest & left the field. I request you to inspire the very few genuine active LGs, who are active.
I appreciate it @Tejal for your untiring and selfless dedication…
I thank you for giving me opportunity to assist you in a few occasions - I assure you all my Supports.
This is such a fantastic and heartwarming post, @Arati ! Local Guides supporting other Local Guides and cheering for their efforts is one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in our community.
You’re right, genuine appreciation can be felt and given by anyone. And trust me when I say that we follow @Tejal 's activities with eagerness, and we learn so much from her posts and meet-up recaps. That’s why so many of them are featured in our recap series, too! Thank you for all you do, Tejal!
@TravellerG You’re also right in that, sometimes, we don’t have the means to learn about a Local Guide’s real efforts in their locality. That’s why we created the nomination form, so we can hear from you, the Local Guides on Connect, about what you see others do to positively impact their communities. We do review every nomination, so, everyone, please feel free to use the form!
Thank you for appreciating my post @DeniGu , it would be always my pleasure to appreciate someone who has been working for better community,
I would like to suggest you to rethink about nomination forms, not every nomination is genuine, after Google moderators post about any Accessibility Champions we do our ground work too to see, if they really fits, sadly to say that the recent post about Accessibility champions seems to be unfair to that title, as per me,
I have done my research, found No accessibility article/post, No accessibility meetups and even some of her reviews has absolutely no accessibility information, and she gets to featured as Accessibility Champion, I always hope that genuine people should deserve their spot. and not merely on the number of nominations.
I have kept my perspective as a local guide, and research we do after the post
@Tejal Thank you for all your great effort and the biggest happiness for all of us is to see the joy of the children who are and will be part of your programs. It’s truly amazing and inspiring.
Thank you for sharing your opinion, we appreciate your feedback. Just to avoid any misunderstanding, I mentioned the nomination form as a way for Local Guides to tell us about the great examples they see in their communities. We do check every nomination in terms of quality, too.
We always aim to highlight Local Guides for their various activities and contributions, not for one specific type. Everyone has their unique way of guiding and we appreciate that. Please be mindful of how your words can affect others on Connect - thoughtfulness is one of our 5 core values.
for all your consistent work toward accessibility 
I just posted one article which is 0.01% of what you do.