Be it in the field of education or at the workplace, the opportunities for
visually impaired people in India are many. Enabling them to realize their
potential is a major challenge, a task that Chennai-based Help The
Blind Foundation (HTBF) has been committed to since 2005.
To achieve this, HTBF reached out to blind and low vision students in
colleges through scholarships, the aim being to stem the high dropout rates.
“Most visually impaired students go to school but drop out when they reach
a higher level and this is primarily because support at the college level was
lacking,” says Sivaji Rao, Trustee, HTBF.
“So, we started off by giving scholarships to college students and this got
a good response. We now have about 2,600 people receiving scholarships around
India.”
Under the scholarship program, eligible students receive financial support to
meet the cost of tuition and hostel fees. There is an annual stipend offered
to day scholars as well as support in extra-curricular activities. Among
those to have benefitted by the scholarship program is Mohammed
Bilal, who is now a trainer with HTBF in their Chennai office.
“HTBF came into my life when I was in Class 8. They offered many facilities
like computer training and also partly funded by graduation expenses at
Loyola College. Today, as a trainer, I teach communication skills and
computers to students.”
HTBF now has plans to go a step further by offering skills training to
students alongside their education. They are doing this in partnership with
organizations like Enable India, and the National
Association of the Blind in Delhi, to name a few.
The idea of starting such a skills training program came up during our
conversations with Cognizant regarding job opportunities. We realized that
just a two or three month on the job training was not enough. Rather, we
had to look at a process that involved constant training right through
their academic sessions. That is why we are tying up with all these
organizations. – Sivaji Rao, Trustee, Help the Blind
Foundation
The training focuses on three aspects – English conversational skills,
computers, as well as lifestyle, which aims to boost motivation and morale.
“This is to make sure they feel confident when they leave college,” adds
Rao.
Among the partner organizations is also the Poona Blind Men’s
Association (PBMA), India’s largest technical training institute
for blind and low vision people, which aims to enable them to lead
independent lives.
‘At our organization we give training in computers and tele-calling,”
says J P Banerjee, Honorary Director, PBMA. “The HTBF has
an all India reach and they gave us inputs on how to make visually impaired
people capable for various industries like banking. They also gave us
information about personality development and skills-based training from the
employers’ perspective. We are working on a roadmap to take this
forward.”
A key aspect of this partnership is awareness and along with Enable India,
HTBF has held workshops to help create this this.
“Through their scholarship program, HTBH has a presence in colleges across
India,” says Moses Chowdari, Head, Enable Vision Cell, Enable
India and in Enable India we focus on livelihoods and digital
literacy. Ninety per cent of visually impaired community don’t even know
such initiatives exist. So, we thought why not hold awareness workshops in
colleges in cities like Lucknow, Varanasi and Delhi. Our trainers conduct
‘reading without seeing’ workshops, where teachers get to know of the
potential of technology as a learning tool as well as career awareness
modules where we talk about different career opportunities for visually
impaired people and how to get them ready.”
At these workshops, visually impaired youth also get to hear from role models
like Gaurav Mishra, a HTBF beneficiary currently doing a
Masters degree at St Stephen’s College in Delhi
University. He was an active member of the Enabling Unit of his
college and is also an avid sportsman. He plans to take the Civil Service
exams in the future.
“Thanks to the support given by HTBF, I have felt empowered and confident
about myself. The financial support they offered gave me a strong foundation
and enabled me to have dreams.”
It is this exactly this mindset that HTBF aims to develop among a larger
number of people in the visually impaired community.
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Source: https://newzhook.com/story/21027
