Sabriye Tenberken is the founder of “Braille Without Borders,” an organisation working for the empowerment of people with visual impairment. Brimming with enthusiasm, she readies to speak about her upcoming project at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. “It is going to be an institute where the blind can develop their potential and utilise their abilities for the betterment of society. We need people who have a vision and the courage and passion to bring about a change in society,” she adds. “A set of highly motivated and educated people who can think out of the box and believe that everything is possible.” She has already received about 15 applications from people with visual impairment all over the world. The institution aims at encouraging them to become social entrepreneurs. “Why can’t the blind get into social work?” she asks. “Why should they be institutionalised? They too can contribute to society.” Sabriye Tenberken, born and brought up in Germany, began losing her eyesight very early and turned blind by the age of 12. Despite the discouraging attitude of society, she continued her studies and was insistent on giving something back to society rather than always being a beneficiary. Her unrelenting quest to travel to other parts of the world and do developmental work led her to Tibet. She approached a couple of organisations in Germany for getting into development work, but none of them encouraged her owing to her disability.

In Tibet, she developed the Tibetan Braille script, which later on became the official script for the blind in Tibet and she also started a Centre for the Blind in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. She worked with hundreds of blind children and has since been concentrating on removing the stigma related to blindness. Ms.Sabriye has also authored two books, “My Path Leads to Tibet” and “The Seventh Year - From Tibet to India.” She now plans to extend her work to India. “India is a great place to develop things and there is a lot of innovative stuff going on here,” she says. Unlike in Europe where no development is possible, there are a lot of things that can be experimented in India, she adds. Though technology has brought in help to people with visual impairment, it should not substitute communication.

“They should develop confidence in themselves and not be dependent on sighted people,” she says.

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