Unite For Sight Supports Bihar Netraheen Parishad School For Blind Girls

Facts

• 90% of visually impaired children in developing countries do not attend school due to discrimination, stigma, and other barriers
• Approximately 2/3 of all blindness afflicts women and girls
• Girls with visual impairment are less likely to attend school than boys
  • (Source: World Health Organization. Vision2020 The Right To Sight Global Initiative for the elimination of avoidable blindness Action plan 2006-2011. Geneva: WHO, 2007)

Educational Programs

Young children who are blind often experience significant social stigma in their communities in the developing world. Ophthalmologists at A.B. Eye Institute, which is Unite For Sight's partner in Patna, India, founded and operate Bihar Netraheen Parishad, the only school in Bihar exclusively for blind girls. The goal of the school is to reduce stigma and provide the girls with a quality elementary and secondary school education, and most of the girls continue on to higher university-level education. The girls gain confidence, skill, and help to change the perception of their family and community about blindness.

CNN Special Feature: Unite For Sight Supporting India School For Blind Girls

Dr. Ajit Sinha, who directs the school, explains:

The girls started enjoying the school campus atmosphere. It is unbelievable, but these girls did not like to go back home during long vacation of the school because they did not get that love and affection from their parents as they got from the school teachers and the house warden. It was a great stigma in the family – A BLIND GIRL. Nobody wanted to extend sympathy to the blind girl, and that is why she enjoyed the school atmosphere more than home atmosphere.

These blind students never are prevented in going to perform in social functions, and they considered themselves no less than the sighted students.  The school encouraged them to take up other courses besides the school curriculum for the classrooms, such as music, Braille short hand typing, computers, and general typing and sports

A girl at the school explained to Dr. Sinha:

After seeing me read and write, they [my family] thought that I was no less capable in doing anything less than a sighted girl.  My mother has great hopes for me, and I think I will fulfill it thanks to Bihar Netraheen Parishad

Unite For Sight's Education Program Inspired By An Entrepreneurial Volunteer

The entrepreneurial spirit of recent Stanford University graduate Emily Abrash led to Unite For Sight's involvement in and support of Bihar Netraheen Parishad. Seeing a need for financial support and assistance to the school while volunteering at A.B. Eye Institute in Bihar, Emily fundraised so that Unite For Sight could provide a grant to Bihar Netraheen Parishad.