At 13, Pratik Shingare began seeing Pune in a way he never had before.
A road accident had left him with multiple fractures, and during recovery, he depended on a wheelchair. The city around him was the same, but suddenly, the smallest things began to decide where he could go.
A step at an entrance. A doorway that felt too narrow. A washroom he could not use. A place that looked accessible online, but became difficult the moment he reached there.
Even going back to school, something he longed for, became uncertain. “I was always at home,” he says. “I missed my friends. I missed school. I just wanted to go back.”
But when he tried to return, his school refused to readmit him. The risk, they said, was too high. Pratik lives with osteogenesis imperfecta, a genetic condition often referred to as brittle bone disease, where bones fracture easily due to a lack of collagen.
“I was heartbroken,” he tells The Better India. “There were no provisions for students like me.”
Those months changed the way Pratik understood accessibility. For many people with mobility challenges, stepping out begins at home, with a series of worries most people never have to carry: Will there be a ramp? Will the doorway be wide enough? Will the washroom be usable? Will the place be as accessible in real life as it claims to be online?
Alongside StairlessJourney, Pratik is also trying to find his way back to formal education. After being denied re-entry into school, he plans to continue his studies through an open schooling system after his ongoing drop year. Photograph: (Pratik Shingare@LinkedIN/Shutterstock)
For Pratik, these questions did not leave easily.
Now at 14, he is building StairlessJourney, an initiative that verifies and maps accessible spaces across Pune, Goa, and Kolkata so people with disabilities can step out with clearer information and less fear.
‘The initiative has given me freedom’
In a little over a year, StairlessJourney has mapped more than 50 accessible locations across Pune, Goa, and Kolkata. For now, it runs through Instagram and LinkedIn, with a website in development.
For those who follow the page, this information brings a small but important reassurance: they can see what a place looks like before deciding to go there.
“Whenever I feel like going out, I just browse their page and pick a place,” says a wheelchair user living with multiple sclerosis, who came across the initiative on Instagram. “StairlessJourney gave me the freedom to go wherever I want, whenever I want.”
The audience is still small, with just over 100 followers. But it is also deeply specific. The page speaks to wheelchair users, caregivers, disability advocates, and people who have spent years navigating cities that were not built with their needs in mind.
For Pratik, the need for such information was clear from his own experience. “For people with mobility challenges, finding one accessible place can take weeks,” he says. “And even then, you’re not sure.”
That is why verification sits at the heart of Pratik’s work. Every place his platform maps has been tested, so that one basic question can be answered clearly: can someone with limited mobility enter, move around, sit, and use the washroom without assistance?
From recovery to a resource for others
Pratik remembers himself, before the accident, as “that mischievous kid who always made everyone laugh”. The shift to life indoors was abrupt. During those months at home, he began turning to writing and art.
“Writing and art became my way of healing,” he says. “They helped me rebuild both strength and hope.”
Over time, those private pages became something he was ready to share. In January 2025, he published Where Hope Begins, a collection of poems and reflections drawn from his recovery. The book carries the emotions of that period: pain, waiting, and the effort of starting again.
“During my long continuous isolation at home after the accident, I decided not just to heal, but to help others find freedom too,” he says.
That thought slowly found direction through a conversation at home. His sister had noticed him spending long hours on his computer and suggested that he build something for people facing similar barriers.
“One day she told me, ‘Why don’t you start something like this? It will help so many people,’” he recalls.
The idea stayed with him. Soon, the Instagram handle grew into a structured effort to document accessibility in practice.
‘We verify every location firsthand’
StairlessJourney works through a 13-member volunteer team, including people with disabilities, students, and young professionals. They work across research, content, outreach, volunteer coordination, and accessibility verification.
Pratik says most of his teammates came through LinkedIn, where the initiative posts opportunities and receives applications from people who resonate with the work. Around 35% of the volunteers have joined through internal references, with existing volunteers bringing in friends and peers who want to contribute.
Each location follows a three-step verification process.
First comes a checklist assessment. Pratik and his team evaluate the basics: entrance accessibility, ramp availability, parking, seating, washrooms, and the overall ease of movement.
Then comes the crucial step: on-ground verification. Pratik has local volunteers in each city, mostly between the ages of 20 and 25, who work as Accessibility Ambassadors.
“The Accessibility Ambassadors physically visit and experience each location,” he says. “They assess whether it is genuinely comfortable and navigable for someone with a mobility challenge. Only after that firsthand experience do we proceed with featuring the place.”
For Pratik, this human check is essential. “Accessibility on paper is not the same as accessibility in real life,” he says.
Finally, the team documents the space through video. The reels show entrances, pathways, seating layouts, and facilities so viewers know what to expect before they arrive.
The result is a growing archive of spaces that can be trusted.
What the map looks like so far
So far, Pratik says the team has mainly focused on cafés and restaurants, as these are frequently visited spaces for people with mobility challenges and often inconsistent in terms of accessibility.
“We are gradually expanding to other categories,” he says.
Every week, the team shortlists potential locations through research. Pratik then reviews the ones that pass the initial filter before they go through the full verification process, including an on-ground visit by a volunteer with a disability.
“We also reach out to the business directly before featuring them, so they are aware and on board,” he explains.
Some of the mapped places include Pineapple Villa by Raddish, a casual riverside restaurant tucked away in a lane off the Baga-Arpora Road in Arpora, Goa; The Yellow Turtle, a pan-Asian restaurant in Kolkata’s Golpark area; and The Sassy Spoon in Pune.
‘Now, I can visit places without fear’
Across Indian cities, accessibility often remains uneven, as Pratik’s work has shown. Ramps, when present, may be too steep. Elevators may be missing or non-functional. Accessible washrooms are still difficult to find.
“For many people, the biggest barrier is this uncertainty,” Pratik says. “You don’t know if you will be able to enter or move.”
StairlessJourney attempts to reduce that uncertainty. Its impact is most visible in individual stories.
For users like Anushree, a wheelchair user who found the page while searching for accessible spaces in Pune, the change is rewarding.
“I was looking for something dedicated to disabled people,” she says. “It is very difficult to explore places because we don’t have an inclusive community as such. When I found StairlessJourney, it helped me locate places around Pune that I can go to without fear.”
The phrase “without fear” points to the emotional cost of exclusion, and the relief of being able to move without planning for failure.
Small following, specific impact
By conventional metrics, StairlessJourney is still small, with just over 100 followers, six seminars conducted on disability, design and dignity, and a presence in three cities. In 2026, Pratik hopes to expand the platform to Mumbai.
But he does not see the numbers as a limitation.
“Our audience is very targeted,” Pratik says. “Every follower is someone who genuinely needs this resource or cares about accessibility.”
That same thinking shapes the seminars, which bring students, organisations, disability advocates, educators, researchers, and people with lived experience into conversations about inclusive design.
So far, Pratik says the team has mainly focused on cafés and restaurants, as these are frequently visited spaces for people with mobility challenges and often remain inconsistent when it comes to accessibility. Photograph: (ICanFlyy Tea Kafi/The Yellow Turtle)
In December 2025, StairlessJourney hosted a six-part online seminar series titled Disability, Design and Dignity on Google Meet. The sessions explored disability, inclusive infrastructure, gaps in the implementation of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, accessibility in education and employment, and youth-led advocacy.
The initiative also organised what it describes as India’s first exclusive online screening of a disability-focused short film. Held on 17 May 2026, the curated screening featured Fragile, a short film centred on Fragile X Syndrome awareness. The event brought together 13 selected attendees and was followed by a live conversation with disability advocates, the film’s creators, and Shalini Kedia, Chairperson of the Fragile X Society India.
For Pratik, the work grows one step at a time. Each seminar starts a conversation, and each new location adds to a map that did not exist before.
Balancing school, recovery and a growing idea
Pratik now has to make major decisions about the initiative. At times, he also appears before potential investors for funding. And age often arrives before those meetings.
He says that in early conversations with potential funders and collaborators, the first reaction was rarely about the work itself.
“They would look at me and ask, ‘You’re so young… how will you manage something like this?’” he shares.
Some were more direct. “‘You’re just 14, how can you sustain this?’ they would say.”
The questions, he says, were not always dismissive, but they carried doubt. “I understand where it comes from,” he adds. “People associate impact with experience. But this problem, accessibility, is something I’ve experienced. I don’t need to be older to understand it.”
Over time, he learned to respond by bringing the conversation back to the work he is doing. “I tell them, don’t look at my age, look at what we’ve already built,” he says. “We have mapped real places, verified them, and people are using them.”
Alongside StairlessJourney, Pratik is also trying to find his way back to formal education. After being denied re-entry into school, he plans to continue his studies through an open schooling system after his ongoing drop year.
In many ways, both journeys are still unfolding. His recovery continues, and so does the work of building StairlessJourney.
Pratik describes the initiative as a “heart-led page and future app” that could eventually grow across cities. But his vision remains grounded. A digital map cannot solve every structural gap, and he is clear about what it can do.
It can reduce uncertainty. It can save time. It can make a city slightly more navigable.
And on an ordinary day, it can return something many people take for granted: the ability to decide to step out.
