The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Exclusive hostel sought for visually impaired women

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Monday, Jan 28, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Exclusive hostel sought for visually impaired women

Staff Reporter

Proceedings of the meeting will be published as a booklet

A teacher recalled that she was denied life insurance because she was visually impaired

Photo: N. Sridharan

VOICING GRIEVANCES: A. Meenakshi Sundari, visually-impaired teacher, highlights the problems of visually-impaired women, at a meeting held at the Youth Hostel, Indira Nagar, in Chennai on Saturday. —

CHENNAI: Visually impaired women told the audience that they were treated like ‘second-class citizens’, at a meeting held to discuss their problems. All support that is offered to them takes the form of charity, rather than that of granting rights, they said, at the meeting organised by the Nandini Voice for the Deprived here on Saturday.

A. Meenakshi Sundari, teacher, recalled that she was denied life insurance because she was visually impaired. Another speaker said several banks refused her loan for self-employment activity.

An exclusive hostel for visually-impaired women was a cmmon request. With a large number of these women being from the lower-income category, they are left without support in the event of a care-taker’s death. Several are also from rural areas where opportunities for self-sufficiency are limited. Providing them a safe space in an urban area would be of great help, some said. Instances of physical molestation were several, they pointed out.

Unemployment was another problem, with the private sector often denying employment. Most of the visually-impaired were employed under the government quotas. One participant said that she was denied the post of receptionist at a private firm. When the manager was asked for a reason, he said that customers would consider a blind person at the first point of contact with the firm as a ‘bad omen’.

N.S. Venkataraman, trustee, said that the decision to hold the meeting followed an awards function that was organised for the visually-impaired in December. The women had then pointed out that sighted persons had spoken far longer than the visually-impaired themselves about the problems the latter face. The decision to give them a platform resulted in the meeting held.

The proceedings of the meeting would be published as a booklet, he said. Recommendations would also be drafted for the government to consider.

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