Actor Kabir Bedi recently joined NewsX for an insightful conversation as part of NewsX India A-List. As part of the exclusive conversation, the actor opened up about his association with Sight Savers, its latest campaign on vaccine equity, and his key lockdown lessons.
Speaking about Sight Savers and their latest campaign on vaccine equity, he said, “I have been the honorary brand ambassador for Sight Savers for a number of years. They have got some great programmes for eye health and for people with disabilities. Now that we are in this sort of pandemic situation, where all of us are dealing with it and all of us are in it together, we can only get out of it and all of us get vaccinated together. When they came up with this campaign for vaccine equity, which aims to vaccinate the people suffering from disability as well, I thought it to be a very important step to take because there are almost 26 million people, i.e 2.6 crore people with disabilities in India. If they don’t get vaccinated then we are defeating the purpose of mass vaccination. A lot of these people need help and so this campaign aims to address that, to reach out and help those with disabilities around us and get them vaccinated. That’s why I am fully behind the campaign and I salute Sight Savers India for launching the campaign. We’ve got to get the message out to everybody—them, me, you, everybody.”
When asked what made you come on board with Sight Savers as their brand ambassador and associate himself with social work, the actor said, “People are fascinated with celebrities. I think celebrities should do their part in spreading the awareness of causes that they believe in. In my case, I am involved with two major charities; not just charities but movements, because I don’t just give my name to a charity and say okay put me as a brand ambassador, I try to play my role very seriously. I’m very hands-on and I get involved in the purpose. One charity I’m involved with is this care and share Italia, which raises money for children living in India. They raise money in Italy, educate slum children in India from kindergarten to university.”
“Sight Saving is very important to me because I saw the incredible work they were doing and I have involved myself there. I have been to their camps in Madhya Pradesh. In India, we brought blind children from various parts of India to Mumbai to show them the sea, to make them experience what life in a big city is like. These people who are disabled, are wonderful, talented individuals and have the same aspirations as all of us and to include them in society is very important. The Sight Savers offers school inclusion programs for blind kids with facilities to join regular classrooms. They have social inclusion programs. They try to make life easier for people with disabilities and for the visually impaired. They restored almost 5 million people’s eyesight for free,” he added.
Reflecting upon the last one and a half year and what have been his lockdown lessons, the actor shared, “Everyone’s lives have been totally disrupted by this pandemic. People have lost loved ones, they have lost jobs, have lost office spaces and their livelihood has been almost lost. Nobody is used to going around everywhere with masks and distancing, it has turned out to be a great social disruptor.”
January 2020 seemed like the good old days, so how do we cope with this?
“The thing is that we all have to adapt. I adapted personally by saying, ‘okay, what are the things I have always wanted to do that I have never been able to focus on in the way I wanted to’, I figured that I wanted to write my book and I had the time to think about it and write it and that was my way of coping with it. My routine of writing every day was for five, six, seven, eight hours a day, and it was one of my ways of coping with it. Everyone has to find coping mechanisms. As Darwin said, the species that survive are not necessarily the strongest or even the most intelligent, it is the species that adapts. We all have to adapt to a whole new thing and it is even harder for people with disabilities to adapt because they are adapting to a new world without all the facilities that a normal person has. Therefore, they are adapting and it is even harder for them. That’s why we have brought this idea of social inclusion to bring these people along and make sure they are vaccinated—so that the disabled don’t get left behind in this world. And in this step, all of us have to contribute to it because we are all in this together. That’s the kind of message I want to spread and promote because now it is a completely different world. We all have to step up and do the best we can. Be kind and compassionate. There is no better time in the world to be kind and compassionate to others than today.”