A lifeline, made legible

Sahayak, or सहायक in Hindi, means helper. The name says everything about the intent.

India’s disability sector is vast and complex. People with disabilities across all 29 states rely heavily on NGO-operated helplines for access to jobs, government schemes, healthcare, and emergency aid. These helplines, run by organisations like ASTHA (Alternative Strategies for The Handicapped), are one of the most trusted and popular channels of information, because they offer something no portal can: a human touch, a handheld approach.

But the volunteers manning these helplines were operating under a significant structural problem. Every call asking about job vacancies, government schemes, or career support required them to gather information from scattered, disconnected sources, physical pamphlets, WhatsApp groups, multiple websites, while still on the call. The feedback loop between a caller’s need and a real opportunity was long, daunting, and often broken.

Covid made it worse. Employment rates for people with disabilities had already fallen from 42.7% in 1991 to 37.6% in 2002. The pandemic widened that gap further. A sizeable portion of the disabled population is educated, skilled, and was working before Covid. The infrastructure to reconnect them to opportunities simply wasn’t there.

The brief: use design thinking to fix the system the volunteers were working inside, not just the surface they were looking at.

The insight that drove the entire design was simple: the helpline volunteer is the most important node in this system. They are the bridge between people with disabilities and the organisations, companies, and government schemes that can help them. Streamline their workflow and the entire ecosystem benefits.

We mapped the volunteer’s actual process. A call comes in. A person with a disability, “Binod” as our research persona was named, is asking about job availability or a government scheme. The volunteer is fielding this query from memory, from pamphlets, from WhatsApp. The process is slow. The information is inconsistent. The caller waits.

Sahayak replaces all of that with a single consolidated digital dashboard. Real-time job listings, government scheme databases, and a CV generator that lets a volunteer search, find, and respond while still on the call. One linear flow: query received, search in real time, generate CV, send to prospective employer. The feedback loop, collapsed.

The platform was also designed as connective tissue for the sector itself, a space where NGOs can build shared databases, increase information reach, and reduce duplication of effort across the network.

The tech is deliberately lean: HTML, WordPress CMS with custom admin access, Sendgrid for email integration. Built to be maintained by the organisations using it, not dependent on technical teams.

Piloted at ASTHA, the response was clear: the efficiency in the feedback loop has been greatly appreciated.