Hello list members,
This posting contains a short journey of a campaign called "Open Your Eyes", which has been very instrumental in spreading the awareness related to the VI community in Symbiosis Centre for Management Studies Under Graduate ( SCMSUG), Pune, the BBA constituent of Symbiosis International University and has also led to the development of facilities for the VI students in the college. This campaign was started by 6 students of our college SCMSUG namely Nalin Agarwal (T Y BBA), Sameer Dixit (T Y BBA), Jay Thanki (S Y BBA), Sagar Jain (S Y BBA), Tausif Iqbal(S Y BBA), and Abdul Razique Khan (F Y BBA). We are sharing our experiences of past 1 year, be it a failure or success, and thus would like everyone to read this posting, especially the students who are currenly pursuing courses in any institution. 19th July,2008, Youth Activism Day- It all started off from here. Youth activism day was celebrated in the form of a competition in our college. In this competition, the participants were supposed to give a presentation on any social issue, in front of the judges and carry out a campaign with the help of posters and banners in the college campus to make the students aware on that issue. The students also had to come up with a solution which can be carried out at a college level to resolve the issue. It was then that we formed a group and named our campaign as " Open Your Eyes". We gave a presentation which was based on the following topics, (i) Hindrances faced in the society by the VI community, (ii) Accessibility issues in front of the visually challenged, (iii) Assistive Technologies: A solution to accessibility issues, (iv) Steps to be taken by the college authority to resolve this issue at a college level. The presentation was backed up by two specially shot videos which created a lot of impact on the judges and audience. The first three parts of the presentation are self explainatory. The main highlight of this presentation was the last part wherein we proposed the management of our college to provide the necessary support system to the visually challenged students of the college. This suggestion was presented in the form of a well documented proposal in which we presented XRCVC, a resource centre for visually challenged successfully operating in ST. Xaviers college, Mumbai as an example. The proposal was accepted immediately by the Head- SCMSUG, Dr. Bhama Venkatramani and all the faculty members. This itself was a win for us. But there was more to come our way, as we were also judged to be the winners of the college event. This was not the beginning, instead, everything had just started. Our team had two well defined objectives now, (i) Spreading the awareness and (ii) Development of support system for visually challenged students in the college. Taking these two objectives in mind, we carried our campaign forward in the form of various programmes and events, which are described as under: 19 1.. th September, 2008- Presentation in the inter college fest- Illuminaire 2008: We gave a similar type of presentation as before in front of the students of various colleges in the Inter college fest- Illuminaire, 2008 to create awareness amongst them. The fest also saw the presence of Mr. V.S. Kumar, commissioner of Income Tax, Pune. We made them realize that a visually challenged student can compete against their counter parts in all fields. Its just that they need the availability of necessary support system to perform their tasks. This presentation was almost the same as the previous one but it had all the ingredients which could inspire and sensetise the students. This was the first type of awareness programme in this level and we are looking forward for more, in the near future. 21st September, 2008- Presentation in the 2nd Access India Convention, Ahmedabad: This was the first time we moved out of our college with our campaign. We, as representatives of SCMSUG, went to the Access India Convention to give a presentation on Inclusive Education ( inclusion of students from all societies in regular schools and colleges). Another purpose to participate in this convention was to gain knowledge about the latest technologies and get the first hand experience from the achievers present over there. We interviewed many of them in order to know the hindrances they have faced in their lives and the struggles they have undergone to overcome these hurdles. 4 members of our team are sighted and it was a totally new experience for them to be amongst so many VI's. They were all very impressed by each and everything over there. Our presentation was very much appreciated and it was enough to encourage us to move forward in this field. As everyone knows, the convention was held in Blind People's Association. This enabled our team to see a glimpse of the life of the students over there. We interviewed some of the students and knew the misery they were going through. They were isolated from the outside world and that's where we knew how important is inclusive education for all of us. After returning from the tour, we presented the report to the Head- SCMSUG, who was very impressed by the experiences we had gained through this trip. This trip had truly opened the eyes of our team members and the management. I feel, this trip of ours, has played a very important role in sensetising the college authority. 22nd December, 2008- Proposal for E Library: The next step of our campaign was the proposal to set an E- library in our college. We suggested the management to set up an E library in our college and explained them the importance of this development. We also made them aware of various technologies which are necessary to convert the library into E library. This proposal was also accepted, instead the management was planning for this development even before our proposal. 18thJanuary, 2009- Pune Get Together for the VI's: The Open Your Eyes team along with Ms Zainab Chinikamwala, arranged a get together in Pune for the VI's of pune and other neighbouring towns. It was a semi- formal get together we can say. It turned out to be a successful event as everyone who participated was very much impressed by the arrangement and appreciated the idea to bring the VI's of the town together. The event was basically planned to bring together people who are not regarded as the creamy layer of our community and are isolated from the rest of the community. We also focused in getting people who have achieved a lot in their lives to share their experiences and inspire the rest present over there. People like Mr Jyotendra Mehta, Mr Pranay Gadodia, Mr Sameer Latey and Ms Jean Parker added flavour to this programme by sharing their experiences with everyone. We also had Mrs Meera Badwe- a socially active lady who runs an NGO named Nivantha in Pune and Dr Bhama Venkatramani, Head- SCMSUG as guests of honour. We had discussions and debates on various topics of common interests. Overall it turned out to be a fruitful programme, for which we were very much appreciated. These were some of the initiatives our team took in the last academic session. Our campaign has played an important role in sensitizing the students of our college and especially the management. It has resulted in the following developments in our college: 1.. Availibility of study materials in soft copies- The VI students are provided the soft copies of the study materials from the college so that they can access the materials with the help of screen reading softwares. 2.. Better faculty support- The faculty members are always ready to take separate classes for the VI students, if they are unable to cope up in the classroom. 3.. Better attitude of students towards the VI students- The attitude of other students towards the VI students has reasonably improved after our awareness programmes. 4.. Development of E library- The E library of our college is now in a developmental stage and it will not only serve the VI students but also the other students of the college. These are small changes which have taken place in our college after we started our campaign, but I'm sure these small changes will lead to big differences. Its not that we can bring about these changes with the help of these campaigns only, its just that we need to take our problems and issues to the management in a proper manner. Its just that we have to make the persons in authority realize their responsibilities towards each and every student of that school/ college. Its just that we have to show our skills and abilities to our counter parts so that they don't under estimate us or treat us in a sympathetic manner. Open Your Eyes campaign has been successful to a certain extent we can say, but there are many more things yet to be done, many more milestones still to be achieved, and most importantly many more eyes yet to be opened. We welcome the suggestions of all our AI folks as to how should we go about with this campaign to make it more successful. Regards, Abdul To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. 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