Rainbow 2025: Celebrating Diversity

Kothari International School, Noida organises an annual event called ‘Rainbow’. Organised with the objective of promoting diversity in the school campuses, this event sees students with special needs from various schools in the Delhi-NCR region participating and showcasing their talents. Rainbow 2025 was the seventh event in this series. It was organised on 11th February 2025. Around 320 students from 40 schools participated in this event.

Students with special needs are affected by conditions such as autism, Down syndrome, ADHD, learning disabilities and intellectual disabilities. To educate these students, specially designed curriculum, books and other materials are used by special educators in schools. It is also ensured that these students receive inclusive education along with other students and develop their individual talents.

I had the honour and privilege of participating as the Chief Guest in Rainbow 2025. Earlier, I had a similar opportunity to participate in Rainbow 2019 as well. Kothari International School, Noida currently has a staff of 22 teachers and support staff working for the students with special needs. Out of these, I am good friends with Gaurav Adeeb and Aksi Naqvi — the entire team of the Rainbow department currently ensures inclusive education for about 90 students. In this school, not only the Rainbow department but the work and behaviour of all the teachers and support staff is such that they easily win hearts. I have not seen such dedication towards special and inclusive education in any other school. This is the reason why the number of participants in the Rainbow program is increasing every year. This year, such a large number of students participated in Rainbow 2025 that all the presentations had to be organized at many different places within the school.

Most parts of Kothari International School, Noida are wheelchair accessible but there were many places where ramps were not built. Gaurav and Aksi knew that I use a wheelchair now. For them the easy way would have been to invite someone who did not need a wheelchair or a ramp as the Chief Guest — but this is yet another example of this school’s commitment to inclusion, as they built temporary wooden ramps at every place I had to go to. I was also shown pictures of these ramps and asked if these were okay for me.

Kothari International School and the Rainbow team chose the path of inclusion that really should be chosen over the easy way out. Inclusion is not all that difficult — we just need to put it into practice and make it a reality. Seeing these temporary wooden ramps made me so happy that I cannot describe it in words — by building these ramps for me, the school has set an example that can only be called exemplary. Apart from this, the Rainbow team took care of all my needs and comfort with such precision that I really started to feel included. Later on I was assured that these temporary ramps will soon be converted into permanent ones.

In today’s Rainbow 2025 program, participating students from various schools sang songs, danced, painted, drew, made models… and these children displayed their talent through many other activities. Rainbow program is a festival of participation and effort, so all the children participating in it are winners and all are awarded gold medals. I kept enjoying watching the performances of all these children and in the end when I got the opportunity to put medals on all of them, I felt honored.

Through this program, I also got the opportunity to meet theater artist Kuljit Singh and Dr. Mansi Grover, a researcher in the field of theater and disability. Both of these distinguished personalities were also the chief guests in this program. In Rainbow 2019, I met Aparajita Sharma in the same way. Although Aparajita ji and I knew each other for a long time, we got the opportunity to meet only in Rainbow 2019. Aparajita ji is no more, and we missed her and her beautiful work a lot.

Rainbow 2025, organised under the leadership of Dr. Sangeeta Arora, Principal of Kothari International School, Noida, has painted colourful hopes and dreams in our minds. I would like to thank the entire team of the school from the bottom of my heart.