Forwarding a post.
Harish
-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: In Covid time, world must show inner vision, say the sightless
Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2020 10:05:23 +0530
From: Kanchan Pamnani <[email protected]>
To: AccessIndia: a list for discussing accessibility and
issuesconcerning the disabled. <[email protected]>
CC: Harish Kotian <[email protected]>
In Covid time, world must show inner vision, say the sightless
Times of India 24-07-2020
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
Malad-based Payal Jethra hates online shopping. “I need to touch and feel
products before I buy them,” says Jethra, a visually-impaired single mother
who feels stripped of her primary sense in a socially distanced world. “I
think I’ll have to carry a signboard or a stick while stepping out,” says
the banker who relied on the tactile humanity of strangers to cross the
highway near her building on her way to work.
Her trepidation about navigating the post-handshake world is shared by many
sightless professionals. “‘Social distancing’ lacks basic empathy,” says
Ajay Minocha, a visually challenged bank employee who prefers the word
“physical distancing” to aptly describe the environment in which the
thought of commuting on his own, as he used to, now gives him cold feet.
“I’ve heard people are using toothpicks or keys to press elevator buttons.
But we can’t do that. We need to feel the numbers with our fingers or rely
on someone else,” says Minocha.
The arbitrariness of banking policy during lockdown further complicates
matters for the visually impaired community, says Rajesh Sudani of the NGO
Visually Impaired Bank Employees Welfare Association. “There is no uniform
workfrom-home policy across the nation. Some employees are exempted from
coming to work in the city while others are asked to report,” says Sudani,
whose NGO has been writing to the finance ministry and Indian Banking
Association, requesting that visually challenged workers be exempted from
duty. So far, only a few like SBI have complied, he says.
Many disadvantaged members within the visually impaired community have
suffered amputation of the economic limb. “Some run small businesses which
have shut. Some are teachers in private schools and have not been paid,”
says Sujata Bhan, head of the department of special education, SNDT Women’s
University which will host a webinar series from July 22 that will address
various post-Covid coping strategies for differently-abled working
professionals. “Online learning too takes a beating as most of the teaching
involves tactile communication. Parents have other responsibilities and are
not able to devote that much time to kids,” says Bhan.
What miffs them further is that in the official list of highly vulnerable
groups, the government does not mention persons with disability. “It has
not crossed their mind that if someone with visual impairment gets
infected, he will need specialised care at the hospital,” says Sudani, who
believes that even the Covid vaccine, when it comes, will not be able to
cure us of paranoia caused by the term ‘social distancing’.
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