By Jules Daudi| Picture yourself sitting in your lounge. It is night-time. Your lights are on. You are watching your favorite show on television while your supper is simmering on the stove in the kitchen. Suddenly the power goes off and everything becomes dark and a little bit scary. All you can see and feel is the darkness around you. However you cannot just sit still and wait because you have things to do. You have to switch off the television, the fridge at the other end of your lounge, the stove in the kitchen and all other electric gadgets in case there is a power surge when the electricity comes back. In view of this, you really need light to get to these appliances and the wall sockets but the challenge is you had not bothered to have a candle and some matches on standby before sitting to watch TV. Such a scenario will force you to “see in the dark” as you have to get up and try to locate the candle and matches in their usual storage place. Suppose, you discover that someone moved the candle without your knowledge. You will have to try to find it or find the power points for the appliances so that you switch them off and you have to do this without the use of your eyes because they cannot see in the dark. So you have to use your hands and your knowledge about the general outlay of your house to get to where the switches are and to try to locate the candle. Such is the everyday life of a blind person; they have to see and do things without the use of physical eyes.
While there are a few people with multiple disabilities or physical impairments, the majority of blind people are just that blind, which according to the Collins dictionary definition means ‘without the power of physical sight’. This point is being emphasized because people sometimes treat blind people as if there have no sensory perception at all. You will find that when a blind person is walking with an assistant, people will address the assistant with questions seeking information about the blind person. It is common to hear the assistant being asked questions like ‘What’s her name, what happened to her”, etc. For some reason, society does not seem to comprehend that loss or lack of sight does no equate to loss or lack of the other senses. Thus it is reiterated that most blind people can hear, talk, smell and touch. So next time you see a blind person and you want to talk to them about something, just address them directly.
As a matter of fact, an observation of blind people will show that as compensation for lack of sight, their other senses are highly sharpened. Hence they will be able to tell who you are simply by touching you or hearing your voice. Most sighted people do not bother to develop such skills because they rely on their ability to see people with their eyes and identify them. An appreciation that blindness is just the absence of physical sight will also help society to understand that blindness in itself has no bearing on a person’s brain power, IQ or mental alertness. For instance, when given the same educational opportunities as sighted people, blind people can perform at the same level with their sighted counterparts. Hence there is no need whatsoever to deny a blind child or person the right to acquire an education simply because he/she is blind.
In conclusion, what is being said here is not that blind people do not need assistance. Even in the field of education which has been mentioned above, there is need for production of educational material which is user-friendly for blind people. This can be Braille material, large print for those with limited sight and audio materials. In cities, there are also things like traffic lights which blind people cannot see and they need help in crossing the roads unless they are walking with someone to assist them. A blind person walking without an assistant is usually identifiable by a white cane which he/she will be carrying. Things like colors can only be identified through the eye thus a blind person will not be able to tell if something is green white or whatever color. The age of technology which we are living in has been a great leap forward in advancing the cause of blind people since there is software which can be installed in phones and computers to help them to read and type. What is legging behind is an overhaul of societal views and attitudes towards blind people. A new dawn and a new era has to come where blind people are not viewed as inferior but equal citizens of the world with an equal ability to contribute towards the development of the human race.