How blind women are moving from darkness to light

As I sat on the lawn of an old bungalow in the tony neighbourhood of Delhi’s Hauz Khas, the humidity of the July heat was unbearable. Yearning for a thirst-quencher I spotted the small café on the premises. I walked up to it and ordered myself a fresh lime soda. Sometime later as I sipped on my chilled drink, I couldn’t but think about my surroundings. I spotted a girl expertly handling the reception juggling phones and keying in information on her desktop.

To say that I was awestruck by it all would be an understatement. Now, why was I awestruck by these seemingly simplistic visuals, you would ask. The answer is that it was not a run-of-the-mill environment I was in. The café – aptly named Blind Bake Café – was being manned and run only by blind women and the girl professionally handling the reception was visually impaired too. This was the NAB India Centre of Blind Women and Disability Studies, established in 2002.

“One-third of the world’s blind population is in India. India has roughly 15 million blind women, of which only five per cent are capable of earning a living independently. Not just that, 99 per cent of blind women and girls have no access to any form of education,” says the centre’s founder-director Shalini Khanna Sodhi.

Sodhi’s vision has ensured that the two-decade-old centre is way more than just a shelter for women with visual impairment. Partnering with German gynaecologist and founder of Discovering Hands, Dr Frank Hoffmann, Sodhi brought to her centre the Tactile Breast Examination (TBE) programme. Having trained four batches to date, TBE looks at using the highly developed sensory skills of visually impaired women to manually screen breasts to diagnose breast cancer in its early stages. During the examination lasting 30-40 minutes, trained Medical Tactile Examiners (MTE) can detect abnormalities which are 50 per cent smaller (6-8 mm) than those found during machine screening.

What led to TBE? “I was not content as we do not spend too much time in clinical examination. My idea was that somebody could spend more time who could do the examination in a more structured way and would have especially trained sense of touch. The person would be perfect for becoming the examiner. This brought me to the idea to train blind and visually impaired women with high tactile sensitivity to become MTEs,” says Hoffmann in his statement on founding Discovering Hands.

Most doctors believe that blind people have enhanced tactile senses that can detect lumps or abrasions in breasts as small as 0.5 cm, which is why they are most eligible for the course. The programme involves training blind women in medical concepts. The potential candidates undergo a detailed assessment procedure after being shortlisted during mobilisation. The Tactile Breast Examination Training course is for a duration of nine months, after which the successful trainers are placed with different hospitals countrywide.

“India is one of the countries where breast cancer is contributing to the increase of female mortality rate. Healthcare is often low on priority and surprisingly breast screening is an alien word for most. According to experts, early screening is the key to increasing the survival rate. The Discovering Hands programme functions as a viable screening method for early detection of breast cancer which is safe, manual and detailed,” says Sodhi, who before deciding to go ahead with implementing the training at her centre, visited Germany to check on the procedure and the success of the training programme. She was accompanied by Dr Kanchan Kaur, Director at the Breast Services in Medanta – The Medicity, Gurgaon.

“The visually impaired girls undergo rigorous training in which they are initially taught basic life skills like mobility, computers, and English following an intense course in medical terminologies, breast anatomies, cancers and many more. The girls then come to me for an internship of three months where they understand the nuances,” says Kaur. Once the training is complete, the MTEs can conduct a detailed, safe, repeatable and accurate clinical breast examination without any radiation or side effects.

When visually impaired girls first come to the centre, Sodhi’s agenda is to make each one independent and mobile. Most of the girls before approaching the centre rarely step out alone. Independence (be it financial or personal) is a dream for them. Sodhi starts with instilling confidence in each woman. It is a slow and painstaking process, but the founder-director would not have it any other way. “Nothing is impossible for the visually impaired, we believe. Our continuous focus is to create avenues for visually impaired women in self-employment by making them entrepreneurs in the long run,” she says.

Take the case of Gunjan Shakya, presently working as a manager at Bank of Baroda. Shakya lost her sight at the age of 13. She enrolled at the NAB centre after 10 years of losing her sight. The training at the centre gave her a new perception of life. Gradually she learnt Braille, followed by computers. Once she completed the mobility training, it gave her immense confidence and the exposure helped carve her personality. Today, in addition to her banking profession, she pens songs for a band of disabled artists in Mumbai.

Likewise, Neetu Garg today is a certified therapist at PayU. Through the centre’s programme, Talking Hands – a unique concept of therapeutic healing using the highly developed tactile sensation of the blind, she underwent training in Japanese Medical Manual Therapy (JMMT), an age-old holistic technique brought from Japan to treat lifestyle-related diseases and ailments. The centre trains the blind and visually impaired women on the several techniques of therapeutic healing methodology that includes oil massage therapy, dry massage therapy, foot reflexology and more.

The centre also runs a crafts section where visually impaired girls are trained in local crafts. The team boasts a website to market their products and sets up special stalls during annual festivals such as Rakhi and Diwali.

If this was not all, Sodhi has gone a step further this year and started the Blind Bake Café. From baking cakes and cookies, to making candies, idlis, sandwiches and fries, the blind girls independently handle all the functions. “I always wanted the girls to be independent in the kitchen. Not being able to feed oneself is one of the biggest handicaps, I believe. All our girls are trained in basic kitchen skills. The training starts with chopping and moves on to cooking on the fire, frying food and even baking. It is, of course, a big deal, but the girls rely on their senses of smell and touch, and of course time each step precisely. We also have an in-house mess that is run entirely by the visually impaired. It has been close to a decade since I started the cooking training for the girls, and we are yet to come across any burnt food!” she smiles. Two of the girls from the cafe are at present interning with a Delhi eatery.

The aim of the NAB India Centre of Blind Women and Disability Studies is simple – a self-sustaining life for marginalised women. The centre seeks to rehabilitate helpless and unskilled blind women so that they can earn their livelihood and regain their dignity. It looks at enabling blind women and empowering them to dream and live their dream.