By Sathiya B | Project Leader
Vaishali
Imagine being perfectly sighted and one day losing it all to a disease. Nobody knows this plight better than Vaishali, the second of six children born to a KSRTC bus driver and a homemaker in rural Karnataka. After being afflicted with Typhoid and not receiving timely medical care, she lost her vision when she was just two years old. Scared for their daughter, her parents refused to send her to school and kept her confined at home till she turned ten. At an age when her peers spent most of their time playing outside, Vaishali was at home, feeling lonely and isolated. Things started getting better when her parents finally enrolled her into a residential school for blind girls.
After schooling, she enrolled herself into the Basic Computer Training course at Mitra Jyothi, where they recognized her potential and decided to support her College education as well. They enrolled her to study Arts at the nearest Government PUC and provided her with food and accommodation. From getting her a Daisy player to record classes and arranging mentors to guide her, to training her on Mobility skills so she could walk to college and encouraging her to participate in the Pinkathon, Mitra Jyothi made sure she received the educational support and access to resources she needed to do her best. She also made use of the wide range of audio books and Braille books available on the premises to prepare for her PU exams and ended up topping her class with a whopping 92.6%!
Imagine her family’s delight on hearing the news- they distributed sweets to all the households in the village, and the entire village gathered together for a celebration. There’s no stopping Vaishali now. She aims to do her Masters in Arts and become a lecturer. Her parents who were scared to let her out of the house when she was a kid, couldn’t be prouder.
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