TURA: In a rare and unique event being held for the first time in this part of the region, visually impaired children from the Montfort Centre of Education school will lead a special “Blind Walk” in the heart of Tura on October 11 as part of observance of World Sight Day organised by Project Vision North East that seeks to encourage people to take a pledge to donate their eyes.
The “Blind Walk in TURA” which will be flagged off by Deputy Commissioner Ram Singh from the Children’s Park at 11 am on Thursday will witness the participation of normal people who will have to walk blindfolded to understand the immense difficulties a visually challenged person has to go through every day of his life.
What makes the walk more unique is that it will be guided by none other than a group of young visually challenged students from Montfort School.
A network of organisations namely Mother’s Union, Tura, Lions Club of Tura, Rotary Club of Tura, Don Bosco College, Don Bosco College of Teacher Education, Marwari Yuva Manch, Bakdil, Montfort Centre, NSS Don Bosco College, Don Bosco Higher Secondary School, Tura and others are actively taking part in this special event.
The blind walk will culminate with the participants taking a pledge to donate their eyes after their demise.
The largest eye donation campaign in the world is going to take place on World Sight Day, this week, through a very innovative program called ‘World Blind Walk’ organised in 55 locations across five countries by a Bangalore based non government initiative called Project Vision.
About 5000 visually challenged people will lead over 25,000 people in a blind folded Walk that will end with a pledge to donate eyes and help the cause of the visually challenged people across the World.
Implementing this year’s World Sight Day theme by International Association for the Prevention of Blindness, ‘Stronger, Together’, World Blind Walk is bringing together over 500 organisations across the globe from social, developmental, medical, academic and religious backgrounds on a single platform to push for a global movement on eye donations.
The Walk will happen on the same day, in the same way in 5 countries including USA, Italy, Nepal, Bhutan and Macau.
According to WHO, an estimated 39 million people are blind worldwide. One in every three blind people lives in India – 15 million.
“As much as this fact arouses sympathy, it equally calls for a response from every socially conscious person and organization to reach out to them. We can join our hands to bring them light,” said Rev. Fr. Bivan Mukhim, principal of Don Bosco College, Tura.
The Project Vision was started by Fr. George Kannanthanam and has been working to promote awareness on eye donations and to create the systems required for it since three years.
The goal is to fill gap between the supply and the demand for corneas in India, which is about 100,000 at present.
Project Vision is a humanitarian project, giving sight to the needy irrespective of caste, sex, creed and religion, in response to the reality of great human suffering of the global society and the country.
The Blind Walk is being organised in order to make people aware of the necessity of eye donation.
