White Cane Day to sensitize people on the challenges faced by visually challenged people
White Cane Day to sensitize people on the challenges faced by visually
challenged people
Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment is
organizing White Cane Day on October 15 to sensitize the common man about the
challenges being faced by visually challenged people. A week long activities
already started on World Sight Day from October 8th2015 will
conclude on tomorrow with eye checkups at various places in Delhi and public
awareness campaigns in various shapes, etc.
Recently, on the occasion of ‘World Sight Day’ on 8
Oct 2015, the Department along with the Hans Foundation, The Score Foundation
and other co partners organized an extensive awareness campaign to drive home
the message of preventing ‘Avoidable Blindness’. Under this campaign volunteers
from the partnering NGOs organized information kiosks at 5 major metro stations
across the capital with an eye counselor and distribution of relevant IEC
material for sensitization and spreading public awareness. Eye checkup and
screening camps were also established at Dilshad Garden, Kabool Nagar Gurudwara
and at Trilokpuri area under the able supervision of ophthalmologists from
AIIMS.
There are over 16 million blind and 28 million
visually impaired people in India who are often marginalized in terms of
education opportunities, career opportunities or social standing as compared to
their sighted counterparts. Due to a lack of access to information, they are
often unable to lead fulfilling, independent, economic and socially productive
lives.
The ‘White Cane Day’ also known internationally as
the ‘White Cane Safety Day’ is celebrated on 15th October every year. The
mission of White Cane Day is to educate the world about how the blind and
visually impaired can live and work independently while giving back to their
communities, to celebrate the abilities and successes achieved by blind people
in a sighted world and to honor the many contributions being made by the blind
and visually impaired.
It goes without saying that every visually impaired
person in our country is a potential resource and they need to be invested in.
They have the potential to become independent, contributing and fully
functional members of society and various stakeholders – both government and
private – need to forge a viable partnership that helps in utilizing their
prospective talent to the best of their abilities. Here are some who forged
their own path and beat the odds:
Rajni Gopalakrishnan: She is the first visually impaired lady to become a Chartered Accountant. Kanchan
Pamnani: She is a practicing advocate and takes up cases with various
courts of Maharashtra.
Dr. Garimella Subramanium: He is a senior journalist with the Hindu.
Beno Zephine: She is the first
visually impaired lady to become an IFS officer.
Hari Raghavan: A Senior
Management at the corporate sector.
Charu Datta Jadhav: Senior Software professional with Tata Consultancy Services and an
International Master in chess.
Late Ravinder Jain: A music composer, singer and lyricist.
Preeti Monga: A successful
Human Resource Entrepreneur.
Taking inspiration from the above achievers on the
occasion of White Cane Day, let us pledge to recognize enormous talent
potential in people who are visually impaired. And also let us go a step
further and explore how better can we harness this potential and include them
as an integral part of the human resource of the country. With education, skill
development and an accessible ecosystem being the bulwarks on which such ideas
are implemented and thereby lead towards an all inclusive society
Post a Comment