Through my eyes- Fiza Jha

While choosing our courses for the first semester, the space and place module struck me as one of the most challenging, yet most interesting. As soon as I read the brief, I knew it was an experience I wouldn't want to miss out on. As a part of the first module, we were going to deal with issues of the visually impaired, the problems blind people face.  We started with 'empathy' towards the blind.  It is one thing to feel sympathy , pity or even sorrow for disabled persons. As a part of school, we would regularly visit old age and paraplegic homes. Interacting with such persons is always a humbling experience, but it cannot instill empathy in you. Narendra, our facilitator, started off with making us walk around the corridors of the campus blindfolded. That tiny exercise alone gave us an insight into a blind person's world. Personally, I was terrified. I could barely take two steps without panicking as I was so afraid that I would fall flat on my face and hurt myself. Then I tried to imagine being in the same position on a crowded, bustling street, not a secure corridor of a college building. There are probably no words to describe being in that state of darkness and insecurity 24x7.  `````````````````````````````````````````

We were shown film on Braille and blind literacy. It  was an eye opener in a sense. It made us realize that irrespective of not being able to see, thanks to an innovation like Braille, visually impaired persons have had the privilege to gain literacy and to be able to read books for so many generations now. It's been years since Braille was invented, but its still a crucial prerequisite for blind literacy. It was quite inspiring to see clips of blind children who were voracious readers, and no different from any of us.   

We were given an exercise to make braille business cards which took us a step closer to understanding the language of braille.

The next step to sensitize us and widening our knowledge base was to send us out to see for ourselves what issues the blind face in their day to day lives.

We were divided up into three sections handling different phases ; Public Spaces, Institutions, Transport.

I was in the group looking at institutions so we choose to survey our own Srishti N3 Campus, Mallya Aditi International School, a Post Office, a Police Station and a Library. Our group learned some interesting things about policies these different institutes had for blind persons and how infrastructure wise they were friendly or unfriendly to the visually challenged.

I focused on Mallya Aditi Internation School  and picked an ex student, Shalini, as a case study. Shalini Mennon was a visually impaired girl studying in MAIS for four years. She was an exceptional student and went on to get accepted to the likes of Harvard and Stanford. The school, along with her mother who was a tremendous support,  made it possible for her to be a part of the school and reach her fullest potential. Her story just proved that with the help of cooperative institutional policies and a broad vision, it is possible to incorporate disabled persons into mainstream society and allow them to unfurl their potential.

The other groups also unearthed interesting facts and our whole class had a new understanding of the systems in place. More than anything, we had a new understanding and respect for the visually impaired as we were amazed at how capable they were of being independent and how desperately they wanted to be viewed as normal and not different or inferior.

You can be as charitable as you want, you can think you're the most sympathetic and humble person in the world but you can't even begin to understand someone else's issues unless you step into their world, into their shoes. We are nowhere close to understanding the issues blind persons face or how they feel about the world, but we're a long way ahead from where we started. The disability itself is something disabled persons learn to cope with beautifully. But having to be dependent on others is what cripples the disabled, I feel. So the best way to help them really, would be to ensure that they need the least possible help from others.

After a long discussion in class, we decided that our next project would be to instill change within ourselves. We took on the task to make our N3 campus blind enabled. After some doing some research, throwing around some ideas, making a few presentations and lots of discussing, we divided ourselves into groups again. We split up into different groups; product design team, instruction manual group, signs and documentation. Some of us worked on instruction manuals for blind visitors which would be in braille. I worked on an instructional manual which could be used by the security, cafeteria staff, administration etc, to to act as a guideline on how to help a visually challenged visitor. To go about such a task, I firstly had to survey the campus, see how the visitor would go around themselves and what would be the challenges or issues they would face. To do this, one again has to put themselves into the subject's shoes. Empathy, I was beginning to realize, something an aspiring designer could not do without. Research, formulation of ideas, follow up, execution, feedback, revision is what it takes to finally complete a project.

On our first day of the course, Narendra told us straight up, "Don't expect to change the world with your first project. But do expect to learn a lot". And that's what we did.