A beacon of light

a guiding force

This year the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) - Karnataka celebrates its 10th anniversary in helping and guiding the visually impaired across Karnataka. Through their resilient endeavour, they have helped countless visually impaired people in securing jobs, education and support.

The National Federation of the Blind is a national non-profit organisation that has been relentless in reaching out to the unreached. “Over the past 10 years, we have served many visually impaired peers and have tried our best in reaching out to all of them across the state, and it has given us immense satisfaction. We aim to continue our work in providing an appropriate environment for the education and employment of persons with visual disability so that they can become productive and useful citizens of the society,” says Gautam Agarwal, the General Secretary of NFB, Karnataka. They have also been able to put in place a strong base and a system for promoting education, creating employment opportunities and contributing in a big way towards holistic development of visually impaired persons.

A different approach
With the philosophy of “Let the blind lead the blind” guiding them, the NFB represents around 2,50,000 visually impaired people across the state. They are the blind’s voice in speaking to state governments and national bodies, on issues concerning blindness and visual impairments. NFB Karnataka works in partnership with several national and
regional organisations, and government agencies for providing services to visually challenged persons.

Globalisation, automation, mechanisation, outsourcing and competition has created new challenges for the NFB and has compelled them to revisit the promotion of education and employment of persons with blindness, in accordance with available job market.

Their strong advocacy for the rights and aspirations of the visually impaired, the NFB’s work has changed many of their lives for the better. In the two hostels run by the organisation, over 1300 students have completed their education and 245 college going students of Karnataka have been awarded with National Scholarship of the federation in last one decade.

Through rigorous civil and legal advocacy for the blind, more than 400 visually impaired individuals have been able to secure government jobs in various departments. They have also been able to to successfully get fully blind people entry into the B Ed course (regular mode) through legal intervention as people with more than 75 per cent disability were not allowed to get admission. After sustained advocacy and lobbying, the State government has reviewed its various schemes for the visually impaired and has also introduced new schemes for the socio-economic empowerment of persons with disability including financial assistance of Rs 50,000 to those persons who marry a person with disability and a child care allowance scheme of Rs 2000 per month to visually impaired mothers for two kids up to two years. The NFB has also filed several public interest litigations and writ petitions in Karnataka’s High Court, challenging the discrimination met with blind and low vision persons in area of employment and education.

“Eliminating prejudice, promoting
belief in the proven abilities of visually impaired people, as well as achieving full participation and equality in society are among the key goals of the organisation in the state,” says Gautham. Let us join together in service to those who are in no way less competent then we are, but who perhaps did not get the opportunity that we got. The NFB’s membership is open to all those who wish to contribute, volunteer their time in helping the visually impaired. They can be contacted at [e-mail]