A blindfolded walk towards a pledge

NEW DELHI: It was a long and productive day for Jai Hind Kumar. Even though he was tired and parched after a walk, he felt that he had done a good job about spreading awareness about the visually challenged. Satisfied, he wanted to go back to his room at Blind Relief Association that has been his home since the past one year and where he learns book binding.
“My teacher in the village school sent me here so that I could learn some skills to earn a living,” said Kumar, a native of Bihar.He was one of the participants of Delhi Walk organised on World Sight Day.
Over 55 cities in India held similar programmes on Thursday where people were blindfolded and sent on a walk led by a visually challenged person. “The idea was to make people aware about the problems and the hindrances faced by the blind,” said Thomas Antony, member of NGO Chetanalaya, which coordinated the event along with Project Vision, a Bangalore-based NGO. During the walk, a visually challenged person guided a group of five blindfolded people from YMCA to Jantar Mantar. “This was great learning experience. I couldn’t walk straight for more than a minute, but these people walk so easily,” said Harpreet Singh, a student of YMCA.
Fr George Kannanthanam, founder-director of Project Vision, said that there are over 1.5 crore blind people in India, but eye donation is a dismal 30,000. This prompted his NGO to organise the walk across India where about 5,000 visually challenged people led over 25,000 people in a blindfolded walk. “All participants were asked to take a pledge to donate their eyes,” he said.