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    "result": {"pageContext":{"language":"en","pathURL":"mohammed-raees","isDefaultLanguage":true,"storyData":{"Name":"Mohammed Raees","Alt_Photos":null,"Alt_Text_Photo1":"Mohammed Raees (27) , wearing a bluish-black shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, sits in a dark chocolate computer chair behind a long white desk. The wall behind him is ivory. He has a narrow black moustache that curves around his lips and a thin, narrow, black beard that covers his chin and cheeks. There is a silver laptop open in front of him and his hands are on the black keyboard. ","Alt_Text_Photo2":"Raees, wearing an indigo T-shirt and chocolate brown pants, is stepping through a brown wooden doorway, holding apart two blood-red satiny curtains with his hands. The walls on either side of the door are cream.","Alt_Text_Photo3":"Raees stands in the kitchen in front of a twin-burner stainless steel gas stove placed on a chocolate-brown platform. He wears chocolate brown pants and a pale pink half-sleeved shirt with white sleeve edges and white collar. There is a brown rectangular tawa on the stove and he is flipping a cream-coloured roti with a steel spatula held in his right hand. To the left of the stove there is a stainless steel plate containing five cream uneven balls of dough with white flour scattered around them.","Alt_Text_Photo4":"Raees, wearing his bluish-black shirt paired with chocolate-brown trousers, stands behind the large rectangular glass pane of a French window. The pane is printed with white capitals that read ACCESS MALAPPURAM with an email ID and phone number below it, also in white. The floor of the room he stands in is beige and the wall, ivory. The pane reflects a hazy outside scene of a road, trees, and a white car.","Alt_Text_Photo5":"Raees, wearing a baggy white T-shirt, chocolate brown trousers, and chocolate brown sandals, sits on a low cement wall covered with blackish lichen. Just behind the wall here is a row of plants with green spear-shaped leaves.","Alt_Text_Video":null,"Photo1_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Mohammed_Raees/_O2A8202.jpg","Photo2_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Mohammed_Raees/_O2A8323.jpg","Photo3_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Mohammed_Raees/_O2A8311.jpg","Photo4_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Mohammed_Raees/_O2A8231.jpg","Photo5_URL":"https://egsweb.s3.ap-south-1.amazonaws.com/Mohammed_Raees/_O2A8355.jpg","Name_English":"Mohammed Raees","Language":"en","Disability":["recmUZQB41AriPt9s"],"Gender":"Male","Instagram_Content":"When we spoke to Mohammed Raees (27) he had just finished coordinating a friendly football match in Malappuram, Kerala – an inclusive game in which there were both disabled and non-disabled players. Coordinating is what Raees, who has dwarfism, does every day as project coordinator of the district administration-led disability initiative Oppam Malappuram, started by then District Collector VR Vinod and now led by the current DC, Vinay Goyal. Supported by the Kodur Service Cooperative Bank, the scheme was kickstarted with a project that provides Public Service Examination (PSC) coaching classes for Persons with Disabilities (PwD).\n\nRaees is the second of six children; his father owns a stationery shop and his mother is a homemaker; his older brother is a driver, a sister is married with children, and three younger siblings go to school. He has a large circle of friends among his Plus 2 classmates and the PSC-coaching students who have multiple disabilities such as blindness, deafness, intellectual disability (ID) and dwarfism. Four students are on the PSC job list and one person with ID has a government job as an office attender. Another Oppam project is Access Café, run by wheelchair-users. Two such cafés have opened at the Malappuram collectorate and at the RTO office and the target is 50. Wheelchair-users are also being trained in marketing products made by PwDs. \n\nRaees has always wanted to help others, particularly PwD, and therefore his job gives him deep satisfaction. He plays football as part of The Little People team of persons with dwarfism, under the auspices of Dharsana Club, an NGO working for the disabled. He also sings at public functions.","Quote":"“There is nothing lacking in me. I have always wanted to help other disabled persons”","Status":"Published","Video":null,"Website_Content":"When we spoke to Mohammed Raees (27) he had just finished coordinating a friendly football match in Malappuram. “It was an inclusive game in which there were both disabled and non-disabled players,” said this cheerful young man from Kerala, using the expression favoured by most Malayalis to describe something smashing or fabulous: “Adi-poli!”\n \nCoordinating is what Raees, who has dwarfism, does every day. For the past two years he has been project coordinator of the district administration-led disability initiative Oppam Malappuram, started by then District Collector VR Vinod and now led by the current DC, Vinay Goyal. ‘Oppam’, which means ‘together’, brings persons with different disabilities under the same umbrella. The project that kicked off the scheme, supported by the Kodur Service Cooperative Bank, involves Public Service Examination (PSC) coaching classes for Persons with Disabilities (PwD).\n \nRaees enthusiastically launches into an explanation of the other Oppam projects and we have to interrupt him to ask for personal information! He lives in Parappangadi town and is the second of six children; his father owns a stationery shop and his mother is a homemaker; his older brother is a driver, a sister is married with children, and three younger siblings go to school. After studying at an un-aided school from LKG to 10th standard he did his Plus-2 at HMS Higher Secondary School and his B.Com in nearby Tirurangadi. He is pursuing M.Com via distance education from Pondicherry University. \n \nWe ask Raees if he was ridiculed for his short stature when he was growing up. “As a child I wasn’t aware of what people were saying but as I matured I understood their mocking comments,” he says. “However I simply ignored them and carried on with my life. I may be shorter than people around me but I have all my faculties. What is lacking in me?” What he definitely does not lack is friendship! “I have lots of friends among the boys and girls who were my classmates in Plus 2 and we regularly keep in touch,” he says. “The PSC-coaching students have also become my friends.” \n \nA batch of 10 interns attends classes on Saturdays and Sundays in the three-month PSC coaching programme and with every new batch Raees gains a new set of friends. “We have had persons with blindness, deafness, intellectual disability (ID) and dwarfism,” he says. A hearing-impaired student from Thrisoor was included because there was no such programme in that district, or indeed, in any other district in the state. “We had an interpreter for her, and she was overjoyed to be able to learn,” Raees recalls. He proudly announces that four students are on the PSC job list and one person with ID has actually secured a government job as an office attender.\n \nUnlike most people who run after money, Raees has always wanted to help others, particularly PwDs, he says. Therefore his job is “adi-poli” since it gives him deep satisfaction. He goes on to describe the second Oppam project – Access Café, run by wheelchair-users. Two such cafés have opened at the Malappuram collectorate and at the RTO office. “Our target is to open 50 Access Cafés,” he says. “The third project is training wheelchair-users in product marketing, four day of coaching them in how to market products made by PwDs.” \n \nAlthough Raees has a job that keeps him on his toes, his feet do some kicking as well. He plays football as part of The Little People, which has both state and national levels teams of persons with dwarfism, under the auspices of Dharsana Club, an NGO working for the disabled. He also sings when called upon to do so at social and public functions.\n \nRaees is not considering marriage at the moment. His life is already packed with meaningful work and rich friendships – in short, it’s “adi-poli”.\n","State_name":"Kerala","Display_Order":268}}},
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