Differently Abled People Across The Globe Can Find A Life Partner Thanks To This Indian App

“I was born with a genetic skin condition called Epidermolysis Bullosa. My skin blisters and tears from minor friction or trauma, I have webbed fingers, I am more prone to allergies and the condition has also affected some internal bodily functions,” writes Varsha Kewalramamni. Suffering from a disorder that alters your physical appearance can be more difficult than just what the disorder does to you. Treated as an ‘other’ by the society, Varsha’s life was not all that simple. She did grow apart from the casual bullying she faced in school, but when she decided she wanted to look for a life partner, she had it worst than most of the regular tinder users. She writes further, “I felt humiliated by the sleazy conversations that the men were trying to have with me, as a result of which I soon got off those apps. I also encountered some arrogant men, who thought that they deserved someone better than me because they were highly qualified.”

While most of us would never profile this as a serious societal issue, freshly graduated Kalyani Khona went out of her way to create a match-making agency through which differently abled people in India would meet their possible life partners. A one woman show, the match-making agency was completely administrated by Kalyani herself. After receiving an overwhelming response and people reaching out from overseas, she decided to create a much bigger and more accessible system.

Case in point — Inclov, a dating app exclusively for the differently abled. “I was travelling, when I started thinking about how people treat disabled people as outsiders, which makes these people feel alienated for social interaction. I decided to work more on this passing thought and came up with the matching making agency. After two years, we crowdfunded 10,000 dollars in two months, thanks to 123 global backers and launched an app that could connect disabled people, in January 2016. Since then, we have at least 1,800 active users, from which two got hitched this May,” explains Kalyani to Homegrown.

Even though, they are working towards refining the app further, it has already become a safe space for the differently abled. While creating this piece of technology, they made sure it would be accessible to different kinds of people. The app has special features that allows people with visual impairment, retina disorder, cerebral palsy and colour blindness, among many others problems, to use it with ease. Which also means that these people can use the app, without the help of other people. Adding onto that, they added features that ensured users complete privacy and security to avoid cyber crime. For example, there is no one way can possibly take screen shots of your profile, as the app doesn’t support screen shots.

Both Kalyani and her co-founder Shankar have won our hearts with their determination to be change makers for the differently abled community around the world. They have also taken their determination offline by organising meet-ups. With the hope that more people like Varsha get a safe platform to find love, we are sure that initiatives such as this one are surely a gateway for many other differently abled individuals to find more sensitive and accepting spaces.