When coronavirus pandemic hit, 26- year old Babloo Kumar worked as a call center executive in Delhi. He enjoyed living independently and paying for his expenses with the monthly remuneration he earned. This included visiting banks and withdrawing money from an ATM when needed.
While on a regular visit to the hospital for an eye check-up, 33- year -old Sudheer learnt about Eyeway Helpdesk. When he contacted the Eyeway counselor in Kochi, his love for reading fiction was evident.
Sudheer was born sighted but gradually began losing his vision due to a degenerative eye condition. Despite his vision issues, he completed his Class 10 successfully. Due to financial constraints in the family he had to give up on his dreams of pursuing higher education and take up daily wage jobs.
18-year-old Tirupati was born in Andhra Pradesh to poor parents. At an early age of 3, he lost his vision to an unknown medical condition. Lack of awareness on blindness and ways to raise a blind child, Tirupati’s childhood was a challenging one.
It was only after his family migrated to Maharashtra for work, Tirupati was admitted in a hostel for blind boys where he learnt mobility skills. After studying in the school till Class 6, he was then put into an inclusive school.
Through his school years, he learnt to operate computers with the help of screen reading software.
26-year-old visually impaired Bhuvanray Hardikar is a resident of Solapur, Maharashtra. When the nationwide lockdown was imposed he suddenly found himself cut off from the world outside. A regular Eyeway client, he contacted Maharashtra Eyeway Helpdesk seeking status on the ongoing crisis. For the counsellor it was evident that Bhuvanray was anxious.
Forty-year-old Gangadharappa lives in Chikkaballapur district of Karnataka. He worked as an Assistant Manager in a garment factory for fifteen years before a road accident in 2015 resulted in his vision loss. This life-changing event left him unemployed and devastated. He struggled to come to terms with his loss of sight and remained confined at home for the next three years.
Blind people irrespective of their education or socio economic background, have reported instances of denial of banking rights to Eyeway in the past. More recently, on behalf of 12-year-old Vicky Mahawae, his elder brother, Pawan called us from Kota, Rajasthan. A nationalised bank in Kota refused to open a (student) account for Vicky because of his vision impairment. Clueless about how to respond, Pawan sought Eyeway’s intervention.
As Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc across the country, the blind community continues to be the worst hit. With social distancing becoming mandatory to contain the deadly virus, blind people are forced to stay at home. This means that many of them, who previously worked in the unorganized sector have now lost their source of income.
Rohit Sahu, a resident of Delhi, was in Class 9 when he started to lose his vision. Soon after, he could not read and write on his own. He failed thrice in the same Class. His family was unaware about provisions and benefits that visually impaired children could avail, for example opting for a scribe facility to write exams.
64-year old Bhasker from Bangalore was gradually losing his vision due to Retinitis Pigmentosa. By the time he retired from the State Electronic Development Corporation in 2015, he could barely see. After undergoing a cataract surgery in 2016, he was able to move around a little on his own. Heavily dependent on his family for assistance, Bhasker now missed reading the newspaper in the morning, a habit he had cherished for many years.
Ashok Mishra from Mumbai suffered from the rare Stevens-Johnson syndrome leading to vision loss at the age of 29. Born into a lower middle class family, he dropped out of school after Class 9 to support his family financially. Having worked in various businesses before, Ashok settled for a private company job and was engaged to be married.
A radio promo about Eyeway Helpdesk made 29 years old Vijay Pathak call our toll free number in the month of January. He was seeking information on employment opportunities for people with vision impairment. Having passed class 10 through open schooling, Vijay had been working for many years with a packaging company. The commute to his workplace was a long one and he was barely getting paid for it.
Neeraj Kumar was only 12 years old when he started losing his eyesight. He had to drop out of school as he spent most of his time visiting eye hospitals for diagnosis and cure. Little did he know that his vision loss was permanent. He lost five years trying to figure out what he could do without vision until he learnt about Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA) camp for children with disabilities. At the camp, he learnt braille and use of cane for mobility. At SSA, Neeraj was also introduced to another visually impaired boy, Sandeep by his teacher who could help him with extra classes for braille.
Ram Kumar was in Class 6 when his eyesight began to deteriorate. Without realizing that this would be an ongoing process, he continued to study until it became difficult for him to move around and read on his own. By Class 8, Ram had stopped going to school, assuming that visually impaired people could not study. With no information on how to live life with blindness, Ram spent the next two years undergoing treatment. His parents were supportive and rushed to every possible eye specialist to restore their son’s eyesight, yielding no results.
Resident of Indore, Madhya Pradesh, 29-year-old Rajesh Arya studied in a mainstream school and college. Despite being 75% visually impaired, he did not avail of any government provisions like scribe or used screen reading software due to lack of awareness. This made his growing up years difficult.
Blind and visually impaired people in our country are left to depend on their families for every decision about their lives. The result of which is often neglect and uncertain future. Budhaji Niguda, 28-year-old visually impaired person from Thane district of Maharashtra has been a victim of such neglect by his family.
Jayamala was only eight years old when she lost her eyesight due to untimely treatment. For the next decade, the young girl stayed within the safe walls of her home. Her family who sustained through a small business had no idea what to do with Jayamala. It was only when one of their relatives apprised them about an organization working for disabled persons that she stepped outside for the first time.
Twenty-four-year-old Chandrakanta Kumari suffered from gradual vision loss, becoming totally blind when she was pursuing Class 12. She still managed to finish her graduation. When she called Eyeway from her hometown, Gaya in Bihar, she sought help in finding a job.
The ministry of social justice and empowerment is set to launch a mobile application which will allow the differently abled, elderly and even Covid-19 patients to lodge accessibility-related problems in buildings or transport infrastructure by simply clicking and uploading pictures from their mobile phones.
Government of India, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, Department of Personnel and Training, Staff Selection Commission,
Block No. 12, CGO Complex,
Lodhi Road,
New Delhi - 110003.
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