Exclusive Interview: Deepa Malik, first Indian woman to win a medal in Paralympic Games
February 2024 327 views 5:05
In this exclusive interview with New India Abroad, Deepa Malik talks about India Hosting World Shooting Para World Cup.
She is the first Indian woman to win a medal in Paralympic Games and won a silver medal at the 2016 Summer Paralympics in shot put. She was awarded with the Arjuna award in 2012, at the age of 42 years and conferred the prestigious Padma Shri award in 2017. Deepa was in Boston this weekend to attend the India Conference at Harvard, February 17 and 18).
"The message that I would like to give out is definitely about perseverance and never give up because these are my mantras. I have continued to learn. I have been on a journey of learning, adapting, finding solutions, and never giving up and keeping my positivity alive," Deepa said.
"These are the basic thing that every youth of today and the whole attitude of gratitude, which they need to practice with a sense of giving back. I feel the future is the youth. The future is in hands of today's generation, and they have to imbibe that whole consciousness of giving back," she said.
"Paralympic sport has been a medium of mine as a very loud statement of abilities beyond disabilities because when I got paralyzed chest down due to repetitive tumors, when I was 30 years old, and this was the second time round in my life, I got paralyzed the first time when I was a child barely five years old and two decades later when I experienced the same disability all over again, I realized that in 20 years nothing had changed when it came to whether we talk of accessibility infrastructurally, or we talk about accessibility in the mindsets," Deepa told New India Abroad.
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