:: BLIND ::

The term "blindness" also applies to partial visual impairment:

People in developing countries are significantly more likely to experience visual impairment as a consequence of treatable or preventable conditions than are their counterparts in the developed world. While vision impairment is most common in people over age 60 across all regions, children in poorer communities are more likely to be affected by a blinding diseases than are their more affluent peers.

Most visual impairment is caused by disease and malnutrition: The most common causes of blindness around the world are cataracts (43% in 1997, according to WHO), Glaucoma (15%), Trachoma (11%), and Vitamin A deficiency found in children under 5 (6%).

When an individual becomes blind, he faces two major problems: First, he must learn the skills and techniques which will enable him to carry on as a normal, productive citizen in the community; and second, he must become aware of and learn to cope with public attitudes and misconceptions about blindness attitudes and misconceptions which go to the very roots of our culture and permeate every aspect of social behavior and thinking.

These are the children from the Happy Home School for the Blind, Worli (Mumbai). Anjali Tapal,a feisty six year old, is the only girl student in the all-boys school, happy home school for the blind, in worli. she does not know, but she has busted a male bastion, even though she got admission in the school because her brother was studying there. whereas tomboys her age are often teased out of a group of boys,anjali has become quite a favourite among her chums, for her sharp wit and playful spirit.

Accomplishments are made of dreams and drudgeries, of hope and hard work. The blind of the nation are now moving toward a destiny, a destiny of full equality and full participation in community life.

That destiny will be achieved when the day comes on which we can say with pleasure and satisfaction what we must now say with concern and consternation: Public attitudes about the blind become the attitudes of the blind. The blind see themselves as others see them.