Help for the Blind or Visually Impaired Person: The Blind Person's Perspective.

The current chairman, Dr Van Joffrion, treated the author in the seventies when he was in Ethiopia. Dr Mekonnen now serves with Dr Van Joffrion to organise help for the blind and facilitate the 'Vision 2020' global effort. Dr Mekonnen lost his sight due to a domestic accident in which boiling water spilled over his face at the age of eighteen months. A rguably, help is essential in the human experience. It is expressed through giving and receiving. These expressions are exercised within the framework of either a real or a perceived attitude of mind. Such attitudes are not necessarily created both by the social, cultural, religious, economic, and political environments in which individuals are raised or the particular inclinations that develop through the different stages of human growth and development. There are, however, some common factors shared by most of those who receive help, and a more realistic perspective is observed from the personal experiences of such individuals , especially in the absence of any documented study that surveys the outlook of most, if not all, those who benefit on the issue of help. As a blind orphan growing up in an institutional setting, my childhood perspective on life was narrowly defined. The school grounds of my childhood home were the entire world and everyone within the fences accounted for the inhabitants of what I then thought was the whole earth. I had no complaints. Provisions were plentiful and I wanted nothing more. My unin-formed perception always assured me that my blindness was not an after effect. Nor did I need or receive help. Everything at the school was all that there was. Everything was normal and nothing was out of place. It was not long before I realised that there was something different about me. Two unpleasant factors affected my thoughts with the harsh realities of my situation. First, I realised that those around me – including some students – had sight. They had something I did not have. Second, as far as I could tell, I was the only orphan in the school. Hence, the truth about me was that I was a blind orphan unlike anyone else in the school. Why? Although not voiced at the time, the truth deeply hurt my feelings and completely undermined my stability. Suddenly, I was lonely even though nothing around me had changed. It hurt to know that the two …