From selling lottery tickets to spearheading waste to wealth mission in Saragur town

 Shake your frame to see the hero! 

Unwanted, undervalued and the quintessential loser – Just how many Disney movies have the hero represent these traits – until a catastrophic disruption threatening the entire mankind favours his return.

Look hard enough and the disruption doesn’t even make the hero flinch despite his perceived handicaps, but levels the game out for the bully, the mainstreamer and the conformists – establishing that when stripped off our privileges – all of us can be vulnerable & weak.

In every movie, the disruption isn’t for the hero but for the world to shake their frame of reference and see the hero that’s there in him – from the same level as his.

Jolly, springy & positive, the hero of our story, Veerbhadra Swamy is no different from a Disney character, and so are the tragedies he faced. When he was young, he fell from the stairs while playing with his brother and soon started having seizure attacks. His parents took him to different temples, yet the problem persisted and later affected the entire right side of his body. His right arm and leg forever caught in a tight muscle contraction. He grew up with a conviction not to depend on others, often doing odd jobs. He’d sell lottery tickets, unwantingly earning himself a title of ‘Lottery Bhadra’. But he wanted to reclaim his identity, the identity his parents gave him, the identity others just couldn’t see. All that was needed was a disruption in his story. 

Exactly 1 year ago, SVYM approached Veerabhadra through its Program for Specially Abled Persons, offering him a proposal to apply for Swacchta Saarthi Fellowship for Govt.’s Waste to Wealth Mission & lead the campaign of household level waste segregation in his Saragur Town in Mysuru District.