Vetri: Indeed you are correct that lack of mobility training is a huge problem in India. However, blind people can not rely on this or that government agency to solve the problem. This will not happen in our lifetime. In some countries mobility and other blindness skills training has been taken on by the consumer organizations. They have established their own training centers run by blind people for blind people. In addition to the teacher/student relationship found in any training program, there is mentoring of blind students by blind people who work at the center or who live in the community. So a newly blind person would be taught mobility and cane travel by another blind person who has undergone a course in how to do such training. These centers do employ sighted people but in very specific areas. In some places, the centers have leveraged funds away from the government agencies. This is because their graduates actually become employed and are successful. Mobility for blind people is not rocket science. The strategies are best learned from another blind person with the occasional assistance of a sighted trainer. It is in this way that someone new to independent mobility can gain confidence in their abilities and make good choices about when to seek assistance.
This is a vast country and resources are few. Waiting centuries for the government is not in the best interest of blind people. Establishing some sort of a mentoring program where blind people can impart skills to one another is the most efficient and effective way to address this problem. One or another consumer group could take this on as a part of their regular activities or, if people are tired of those consumer groups another one could be formed for this specific purpose. Jean Register for AccessIndia convention 2011(November 12-13) at: http://www.accessindia.org.in/harish/convention.htm Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in
