[Ct-nfb] Blind Babies and Our Purpose

[Justin Salisbury]

Hi Joyce,

Your experience sounds quite interesting. I would love to hear more about it.

At this point in the discussion, it is relevant to remember that the scope of the work of the national Federation of the blind is The United States of America.  Even if surgery were a part of our work, it would only apply to people in the United States.  The National Federation of the Blind has many resources, but our resources are still limited. We allocate them in a way that does not include the blind of other countries.

In order for us to start conducting international work, we would need constitutional changes.

We are governed by our constitution, and we need to abide by it. I am not making any moral claims about this effort.  I believe that our participation in it is contradictory to our purpose as an organization and mission as a movement.

Again, I think your experience sounds very interesting. I sincerely mean it when I say that I would love to hear more about it. Have you considered writing an article for either our state newsletter or the Braille Monitor about it?

Yours,

Justin Salisbury

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 15, 2013, at 7:57 PM, "Blindhands at aol.com<mailto:Blindhands at aol.com>" <Blindhands at aol.com<mailto:Blindhands at aol.com>> wrote:

Justin ,

I agree  with the Federation regarding what you said in your email, but this child lives in India and is a native of India.

I don't know if you have had the opportunity to ever had gone to India and experienced first hand the blind people in India, but I have.

There is 14.5 million blind people in India and the opportunity for the blind in India is far from what yu can imagine.  They are not taught to travel independently nor do they have the opportunity to even have a cane.    There isn't much opportunity for training of jobs.

While I was there I had the chance of visiting some of the much better schools for the blind.  Some examples I can give is a school in Mumbai  that had over 500 students living at the school and I visited their computer lab.  They had 8 computers in there to train these 500 students on.

While I was there I had to get special peermission which was made ahead of time to my arrival to travel with my guide dog.  I could not go in public tourist areas with her, but I was invited to the Capital in New Deli to have an appointment with the Department of rehabilitation for the government in India.

Mind you I was only allowed to visit the blind schools that the India government allowed me to visit along with members of the U.S. Embassy.

I totally understand the desperation of this Mother of this little boy seeking medical attention in the USA to save her child's sight.

I never had the chance to visit blind people that live in the villages that are cared for by their family for all of their life.

Joyce Kane
www.KraftersKorner.org<http://www.krafterskorner.org/>
Blindhands at AOL.com<mailto:Blindhands at AOL.com>

In a message dated 7/15/2013 1:24:46 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, PRESIDENT at alumni.ecu.edu<mailto:PRESIDENT at alumni.ecu.edu> writes:
Justin
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