[Ct-nfb] Blind Babies and Our Purpose

Tue Jul 16 01:24:04 UTC 2013

Trevor:
Excellent points! Thank you.

Elizabeth Greenwood:
Thank you.  If your friend at news 12 is interested in covering a story, we would love love love for them to cover a story on subminimum wages. Our friend Joyce Kane would be a great speaker for that, too. I would love to help. We may even be able to bring in Anil Lewis for that story.

All:
I am not saying that restoring eyesight is a bad thing. If I were offered the opportunity, I would really think about it. I'm not sure if I would do it, though. I do not think anything bad about the mother for wanting this for her baby. It is simply not the role of the Federation. Like Trevor said, our role should be to provide information about the realities of blindness.

Justin

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 15, 2013, at 9:11 PM, "Trevor Attenberg" <tattenberg at gmail.com<mailto:tattenberg at gmail.com>> wrote:

While I’ve not been to India, I know several blind federationists from India. While I can say we have many things going for us in the U.S.,--in no small part due to the work of the NFB—we should remember it wasn’t long ago that nearly all blind Americans were prohibited from attending adequate public schools like sighted peers. Such an era lasted well beyond the foundation of the NFB; and from the beginning, the NFB’s main message has been blindness isn’t a tragedy. I did visit a school for the blind in Vietnam. As you might imagine, career opportunities and social acceptance there is quite limited currently, despite their being a number of blind national icons. What blind people face there is basically the same as what we see in the U.S. People don’t think blind folks are capable of achieving greatness; blind people cannot keep up in a modern world; blindness is a debilitating punishment, etc. Thus, blind people around the world face the same problems of perception as we do.
The strategy the NFB has always taken is to emphasize the potential and capability of blind people rather than the obstickles and perceptions of devastation and gloom that is too often the first thing people think. Thus, I would say we could really do more by stressing a positive message of blindness for the parents of the child, the senator, and the TV audience. While the parents may have to struggle with the facts of having a blind child in a country where there are few services and many fears surrounding blindness, they and the child will benefit profusely from knowing their child can achieve, and knowing they have a supportive community of successful blind people there to offer what they can in terms of wisdom, encouragement, and tools.
                This is what I was kind of tiptoeing around before after getting the video message. While I am not opposed to curing cases of blindness per se; this is really not the territory of the NFB at all. This is more the territory of some medical charity or the Lions, and we’re not a charity in this way. As Justin pointed out, we’re really treading on our main goal and message by pushing such a political and media campaign. After all, we and the Senator are not going to cure all the curable cases of blindness in India, right?
Best,
Trevor A

From: Ct-nfb [mailto:ct-nfb-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Blindhands at aol.com<mailto:Blindhands at aol.com>
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2013 7:57 PM
To: ct-nfb at nfbnet.org<mailto:ct-nfb at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [Ct-nfb] Blind Babies and Our Purpose

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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