On the beautiful morning of Saturday - September 10 ’11, my fellow Management Trainees – Ayushi Menta and Hiren Nishar and I, Nikita Pinge, arrived at the picturesque St Xaviers College campus, ironically to attend the “Antarchakshu” sensitization workshop. The workshop was conducted to spread awareness and sensitize people about the problems faced by the Visually Challenged and how they are striving to overcome them.
The St. Xavier's Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged (XRCVC), supported by J&J's India Contributions initiative, is endeavoring towards providing visually challenged students with state of the art facilities, which will make learning more user-friendly and sensitive to their special needs.
Nikita says:
“At the Registration desk we were welcomed by the Volunteers and especially Rakesh, a visually challenged boy, who made us lovely bookmarks inscribed with our names in Braille.
We were summoned inside the hall to take part in the different activities like maneuvering a wheelchair and after being blindfolded we were made to experience shopping, walking on roads, playing football, watching a movie. These activities opened my mind to the fact that there is so much to life than mere sight.
Post this we had a tour of the exhibits wherein we realized so much is being done for the visually challenged abroad and it has to catch up in India for the welfare of those here. At the end of the session we interacted with the visually challenged people who are active in this Centre and it touched me to hear their stories and how they are coming to terms with life with their optimistic and smiling approach.
I left the workshop making myself a promise that I will be back and till then spread awareness about improving the quality of life for the visually challenged in India.”
Ayushi says:
“This Saturday when I went to St Xaviers College it was a big eye opener for me……Have never seen so much of selflessness and effort that people can put together to promote a cause. Things are happening everyday around us but we are so busy that we overlook so many things…
The students of Xaviers College had organized a fantastic programme to create awareness about the things we as Normal people can do to help the physically or visually challenged people…They blind folded us so that we know how it is to be blind and understand what are the problems they face and how we could help…Next time when we see a blind person crossing the road we should go and help that person and not just see that person and pass by…
When there are people on a wheel chair they find it difficult to pick up things which are on a height in a shopping mall so we should keep our eyes open and quickly go and extend a helping hand…
It was a one hour activity filled with many games in which either we are on a wheelchair or we are blind folded…
In the end we personally met a blind person and spoke to him for 5 mins…It was amazing and shocking to learn that he knew MS Excel and also plays chess….At the end of the day just felt that I should be a more responsible person and be more sensitive to things happening around me…”
Hiren says:
“‘Antarchakshu’ – The eyes within .. This was the name of the initiative taken by St. Xavier’s Resource Centre in association with J&J. The name given is so apt with the initiative that has been taken. In our everyday lives we see visually challenged and disabled people struggling with normal day to day things but we never give them a second look. Antarchakshu has now changed the way I will see these people. A small help from us will make their lives a little bit easier.. Helping them cross the road, guiding them in crowded places, helping them in a mall any of these small helps will go a long way in making their lives simpler.
We were blind folded the moment we entered the hall and were made to do different activities which the blind and disabled people do in their everyday live. What I realized was that even simple things like picking up a packet from the top shelf of a shopping mall was a tough task when we were made to sit on a wheelchair and could not use our feet. They made us experience many such small things during the one hour session. It was a total eye opener of how the blind and disabled live in such difficult situations. We were even made to experience how blind people can enjoy movies. We heard a two minutes clip of the movie ‘Peepli Live’ and were asked that according to us what was going on during the two minutes scene. We all had varied answers. They then made us hear the same clip with explanations and descriptions in the background, through which we could visualize what actually was going on in the movie. It was so much different and understandable. The message they sent via this clip was that in America all movies which release on dvds should compulsorily have special explanations for the blind so that even they can enjoy the movie like normal people. ‘Peepli Live’ was the first such Indian movie with explanations for the blind. I hope future Indian movies too have this facility.
Another realization was that during our interaction with the blind people they always had a smile on their face and there was no trace of disappointment about being blind in their voice. There is much to learn from their zest for life. Finally hats off to the St. Xavier’s students for a wonderful show and selfless service. Antarchakshu has helped me experience the world of differently abled and has redefined my vision.”
