Need for Risk-free Mobility: World White Cane Safety Day

“Tip-Tap, Tip-tap!”
“What is this?”
“This is ‘white cane’.”
“What is White cane?”
“It’s the eye of those who can’t see: a symbol of independence!”

Ok, the special Day is here with us: the World  White Cane Safety Day, October 15!!

Well, for those who are still wondering what really the what cane is, I am here to tell you everything.

White Cane is a special stick that blind and visually-impaired people use for  their day-to-day mobility.

Since I am also a visually-impaired, I, of course, use white cane. It’s been an indispensable part of my life, like my shadow, or like appendage! It’s been almost 13 years since I started using white cane. Many people on the streets still do not know the significance of the White Cane. while  walking around, daily I have to face many questions about white cane! Some people do ask if the cane shows the way where we are intending to go! some wonder why people with visual impairment use white cane as such

In other words, many times, people bump, knock into us and get tangled with our Canes, even though we are walking calmly on our right ways! Now what all these ignorance’s mean to us? I think the answer is straight-forward: lack of awareness, of course! So, what can we do to generate and raise the public awareness about white cane then? Definitely, among the several ways, observing White Cane Safety Day and letting people know what in fact the white cane means are the crucial things to do, right?

Thus, We believe by celebrating the White Cane safety Day, it will raise the public awareness of what the white cane symbolizes: independence, safety and identity of blind and visually-impaired!

Taking this best opportunity, I would like to request all of you that when you see a person holding white cane or walking with a White Cane, recognize the person is blind and cannot see you, so help him/her to cross the road, give way if you are walking and slow down or stop if you are driving.

We all should understand that it’s not the matter of pity, but it’s the matter of priority; it’s not the matter of charity, but it’s the matter of opportunity!!! Helping the persons with white cane for the independent mobility, indeed, is one of the greatest help one can ever offer. Let’s assist blind and visually-impaired for the risk-free mobility!

Now let’s talk a little bit about the history and background behind the initiation of this day. According to te information given by National Federation for the Blind (NFB) America, on October 6, 1964, a joint resolution of the Congress was signed into law authorizing the President of the United States to proclaim October 15 of each year as "White Cane Safety Day." This resolution said: "Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives", that the President, Lyndon B. Johnson, is hereby authorized to issue annually a proclamation designating October 15 as White Cane Safety Day and calling upon the people of the United States to observe such a day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.” This groundbreaking step germinated in United States, soon, got a universal form of global  Day, by which many countries, one after another, started to accept and observe this day annually in October 15 with miscellaneous programs.

In Nepal, this day marks a special space in the entire disability-related event. Under the leadership of Nepal Association of Blind, (NAB), the big rally is organized with  series of speeches by prominent visually-impaired figures, awareness programs on white canes such as street-drama, interaction with political leaders and so on. Not only that white canes are distributed free of cost, and blind/visually-impaired celebrate the independent and risk-free mobility.

The facts are intensely visible in Nepal that our roads are not accessible, even in the urban areas including the capital city of Kathmandu.  Hence, these days, our main lobby and advocacy are primarily concerned with pressurizing government to adopt “accessibility” as an obligatory aspect and ensure the blind-friendly roads and infrastructures in the country.

 

Here, more awareness are needed. The activities and the endeavors that we are focusing are not enough. First we need to raise public awareness on the significance of white cane and then we need to make government realize the importance of accessible infrastructures in Nepal.

Let’s hope for the better situation for our barrier-free mobility.  Sky is limitless, of course.

Post-Earthquake days: Overcoming Obstacles and moving forward with helping hands to comfort the victims!

The devastating Earthquake of April, that ruined Nepal within a single minute, was one of the most pathetic catastrophes and tremendous tragedies for Nepali that we ever experienced in the history. The powerful Earthquake and the subsequent series of aftershocks caused the mournful crisis throughout the country. Many lives were snatched brutally while many were trapped in the rubble, many people got severely injured while many went missing whose whereabouts is still unreported. It was so irreparable loss for Nepal that the various cultural heritages including the tallest tower called, ‘Dharahara’, are no more now as they are just in memories and photographs!

The few initial days turned out to be very gloomy for all of us. Soon after Earthquake struck Nepal, people started to come out of the homes to the open-spaces/grounds and spent many days in the tents. Situation was the same for my family too. We had no electricity, no battery back up in the phones and the communication channels were very fragile. Our home got severely cracked and later it got red-stickered (sign of uninhabitable). The things went utterly topsy-turvy that we were not sure what would be the next thing to do, how our lives would be patched up and move towards the normal situation again. Aftershocks were unceasingly striking our minds with fear and uncertainty, our concentration was just moving to the news of Radio Nepal. The depressing news regarding rising death toll and the deteriorating situation of earthquake-survivors excessively saddened all of us. Personally speaking, I was experiencing a kind of numbness, a weird state of senselessness and dizzy.

We, indeed, spent a week after Earthquake doing nothing, just counting our days with deep despair lying on the dusty ground, being wet from the drizzles and trying to comfort each other to minimize psychological havoc and weariness.

What could we do more than this at that horrible situation? There was no other way to subvert the loss and casualties. Only the thing we could do was to have patience and resilient spirit to patch up our hearts and to pull ourselves from the stresses. The reality was crystal-clear that everybody was suffering, but only the degree differed. As for the Earthquake and the power of the nature are concerned,nobody can avert the decree of Nature, and the mystery and misfortunes brought by the natural calamity are completely beyond our control or understanding.

Truly speaking, Suffering, whether near or far, has it’s impacts all around us! The same thing happened to me as well. Many friends who are very close to my heart contacted me from abroad, especially from United States and asked how I and the family was, then even asked if they could do something through us to help in Nepal for Earthquake victims. The amazing love, care and the growing concerns of the friends from near and far warmed my heart in a great way, and later, I, my brother Bashudev and the friends of our self-help group decided that worry wouldn’t do much. We thought that God left us alive to do something more for our country and communities.

Yes, we then made our minds up to do something, but from where and how should we start? Again, there lied a bizarre state of confusion. After a week later, we visited the different parts of Kathmandu especially, Ratnapark, the central Area of Kathmandu, and to our extreme astonishment, Kathmandu was calm and quiet, not like that of the past. This was the result of huge number of people who immediately left Kathmandu city and returned their nome towns/villages. However, we came to know about the youth’s initiative for humanitarian response, relief and rescue. Learning and knowing that young minds began to sow the embryos of humanity, we also got encouraged and driven to come out with helping hands.

It is believed that trial and tribulations are not permanent. Yes, this true statement united Nepali very quickly right after Earthquake. Sharing the tents in the communities helped people strengthen the friendliness relationship among neighbours. See, while people were sharing a single tent collectively, there was no caste, no ethnicity, no gender, no age-limits, no religion and no regional variation, the only things there presented was humanity and unity among each other. This was really a remarkable note to be highlighted after Earthquake.

Well, since Earthquake taught us a great lesson of humanity and altruism, various youth-led groups started volunteering for Earthquake victims to distribute relief and rehabilitation. And we were one of them!

While we were contacting our friends and circle of well-wishers as well as relatives to know how they were and how their condition was, we knew a sad news that the Sanjjiwani school, which is located in Dhulikhel Kabre where I had learned braille and studied up to grade 6, collapsed in Earthquake. We further were reported that the 18 blind and visually-impaired kids there in the school were staying in very difficult condition. Having known those distressing news, we intended to start our post-earthquake relief campaign right from that school by providing food, blankets, clothes and sanitation stuffs to the 18 visually-impaired students.

Actually, we, the group of friends who share the common sentiment of social works, had firmed a self-help venture few years back with the main objective of bridging the gap and empowering the persons living with disabilities and bringing them into the main stream of national development. Through this platform, we had been saving up some resources out of our own salaries/earnings. Hence, when earthquake shook Nepal and when we were ready to move with our helping hands, we used our already-saved own resources and funds instead of asking other to join our cause.

When we started distributing relief packages to the visually-impaired students in Sanjiwani school in Dhulikhel, some friends of mine and some NGOs approached us and requested for collaboration. Dale Davis, Sagar PrasainTilganga Eye hospital and many other supported our spontaneous relief campaign.

Despite our own suffering, we travelled many remotest places where we had never been before. We reached the various hard-hit places helping people, listening their stories, witnessing their situation and giving our helping hands to the best of our abilities!

The journey of life sometimes comes to be so difficult, inaccessible  and full of stresses, however, accepting the reality, compromising witht the circumstances and getting going ahead is what we all should learn and do by the hearts. Putting these things in practice, our post-earthquake relief and rehabilitation campaign got further momentum. Colaborating with Gwahali for Differently Able (GDAP), Blind Rocks and Engage Nepal, we targeted our relief work especially focusing to the persons with disabilities. We set up health camps in ore than 20 different places, distributed food, clothes and sanitation kits  in different 11 districts touching and comforting the lives of the thousands of earthquake victims.

In the second phase, we came up with the mission of building temporary homes and shelters for the most-affected families with disabilities in the earthquake hard-hit districts. Monsoon was about to start, and the situation of people who were staying in the tnets or under the open sky was getting much deteriorated. Considering the hardships, together with Gwahali team and Engage Nepal, taking the young volunteers to the spots, we began to build the shelters in Sindhupalchok district. Completing more than 30 shelters in Sindhupalchok, we never ceased to wrap up the rehabilitation campaign. As a result, by this time, we have constructed 65 shelters in Kabre, Sindhupalchok, Dhading, Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Nuwakot. More shelters were still on the way of construction.   for pace of tireless relief giving continued.

Along with shelter-construction, we witnessed that Earthquake made many persons physically-challenged that they were in the urgent need of assistive tools while on the other hand, we saw many persons with disabilities lost their assistive tools and devices such as wheelchairs, crutches and white canes in earthquake. Seeing those needs, we collected those assistive tools, for which, Help Nepal Network, provided us 120 white canes, Shiva-Shakti Sadhana centre and Lhakpa Phuti Trust as well as Sagar Prasain helped us purchase wheelchairs and crutches. Thus by collective efforts, so far, we have been able to distribute 66 while-chairs, 69 crutches, 351 white canes and 18 hand-sticks to the earthquake-affected persons with disabilities.

During our spontaneous relief and rehabilitation campaigns, we encountered different bitter circumstances. Once we were on the survey for shelter-construction in Sindhupalchok, we, the team of Bright Star Society, Gwahali, Engage Nepal and Robotic Association of Nepal were heading to Thulo-Pakhar. our vehicle got hit by a big truck, luckily, if our vehicle was not stopped by emergency break, we would have fallen off the cliff! Oh, getting new life from the accident, we sighed  with deep breath!

In this way, despite many challenges, we have been able to do something, just to contribute a little from our sides, more things are yet to be done. Still our post-earthquake campaigns are going on with persistence and innovative approach. Since Earthquake has made people largely dependent, but we now want to do such thing by which people can be independent and be able to stand on their own feet. For which we are now promoting local venture and entrepreneurship via the cross-disability model. Let’s see how much we can do to accomplish our goal! Together we can carry the greater load, can’t we? Together we can share and lighten the burden of social responsibilities. I believe that if we light a candle for somebody, it will eventually lighten our own path as well. So why not doing something good and meaningful for our society?

Rome was not built in a single day, was it? Japan would not have been today’s Japan if Japanese had not worked hard overcoming obstacles that they had to face in the past. With these outstanding examples of the world, I am pretty hopeful for the future of tomorrow’s Nepal, I see my country, a new Nepal is waiting for us! If we all keep working hard with vibrant courage and selfless spirit, this transition will not last long for sure!

Remembering that horrible day: bitter Earthquake Experience as "the Rehearsal of the Death"

"Saturday, April 25 2015", this is one of the unforgettable dates that every Nepali will recall with chilling pain. Yes, this date painfully reminds all of us that bitter moment when we experienced the most powerful and devastating Earthquake and the series of aftershocks that ruined Nepal killing more than 10 thousand people.

It was a pleasant Saturday dawn when I rose from the bed a bit earlier as I had a meeting with one of my friends at 7 AM. When I got out of the home, the weather was as cold as winter, the chilling cold wind was blowing with unusual droplets. I was wondering why weather altered all of a sudden since it was quite normal and there was no any clear sign of rain as well before that morning!

Enjoying the drizzles, I reached Bansbari, met Shittal Lama, and had a brief discussion regarding the forthcoming campaigns and activities of our organization. After the meeting, I checked the time, and it was just 7-15 AM. Since I had plenty of free time on that day, and my hair was getting longer as well. So I decided to go to New-Road in order to have my hair cut.

 

It was around 9-15 AM after having my hair cut, I thought to return home and complete the pending works that I was supposed to submit the office the next day. Hence, I got back to home, had nice meal and took a rest for a while.

Every Saturday, my brother, Bashudev, presents a comedy show on Grace FM 106.7 in Dhulikhel, Kabre. And most of the time, we go to FM together, however, That day, he had gone to present his radio show with a sighted volunteer, Chhavi Devakota, and I was saying to Bashudev that I would listen to his show from home itself. Keeping the radio set on, I started to work on my pending works of my office. In fact, at that time, I was working for an NGO, called, “Action on Disability Rights and Development” and we were producing accessible books for the blind and visually-impaired as well as for the people with print impairment. Our target was to produce 140 books into Digital Accessible Information System (DAISY) format.

As I was giving my full concentration on scanning the book of Health as an initial process of converting that into accessible format, I was also thinking of my brother whose radio show was about to begin in just few minutes from Grace FM. All of a sudden, Earth began to dance so bitterly that we were shaken so strangely as if we were swinging back and forth. That was completely distinct weird sound that I’d never heard before! My mind went completely blank that I could not think anything. Aghast! The stuffs began to fall nearby my bed, and I just thought that we would be no more on this Earth. I was so flabbergasted that I even did not care to turn off laptop and left all the scanned scattered pages aside and could not think ahead!

When the  powerful tremor got over, in fearful and haste condition, I including the whole family ran down towards the open air, and in my semi-consciousness state, I quickly dropped a post in facebook, “Oh howl! Big Earthquake ever experienced.. God solace us”

It was like a dream, mind became blunt, the series of terrible aftershocks kept terrifying us. We were just uttering the names of Gods. Telephone network stopped working, we were extremely anxious and tried time and again to contact the friends relatives and specially to my brother, Bashudev, who was in Dhulikhel for his radio show. After few minutes, we were able to contact Bashudev and knew that he was OK there. Hearing his voice and knowing his condition, I was relieved but still concerned that how he would return to home at that very terrible time. Tremor was taking it’s momentum again and again, and we all were afraid to enter into the home. Just desperately sitting on the ground without making any movement, we were waiting for Bashudev’s arrival. News of Earthquake started to spread all across the globe, my facebook timeline and e-mail were filled with posts and messages from friends relatives and well-wishers, internet network was fluctuating, and I could just see some of the posts from the friends. Meanwhile, more terrifying news about damages, casualties started to be reported along with ample of rumors. As time was heading towards dusk, my brother arrived home, which made all of us content and we sighed with relief.

My brother Bashudev described his Earthquake experience with distressing tone. When he was about to enter into the studio for his radio show, he felt the big quake. The studio was on the fifth floor. Everyone in the studio including Bashudev was perplexed on what to do next. The Technician, Suraj Srestha and the volunteer, Chhavi Devakota led Bashudev slowly and they attempted to  step down towards the ground-floor. Building was still trembling, just few meters ahead of them, the broken glasses of windows got dropped, luckily, that did not touch them, and once they passed the pieces of broken glasses while getting down, again, the broken glasses fell just behind them, they were just untouched merely by very little distance. Eventually, they reached down the ground, where road was almost calm and mournful. Vehicles were immobile and they had to wait for a long time to find the bus to Kathmandu. Finally Bashudev and volunteer Chhabi got the bus, which was already packed, struggling to get on, they entered into the bus which dropped them in New Baneshwor. The heart of Kathmandu, New Baneshor area, always sounded with crowd of people and vehicles, that day, was very quiet. Bashudev waited for bus, but he could not get for an hour. Later, he got a bus to Chabel and Chhabi returned his home. From Chabel, my brother-in-law, Ramesh Neupane took him to home on motor-bike.

This is how sharing each other fearful moment that Earthquake hit us mercilessly, we spent the evening. We had no appetite, just wondering what would happen next, we kept thinking the future of the next days.

That day, whole night spent under the moon:( bitter, gloomy, still the petty quakes were being experienced:( began to rain, we were safe neither at home nor in the open sky.. It then felt chilling cold like winter:( weather turned out to be foul, terrible, devastating, no electricity, no good communication channel.. It was so heart-broken moments that I vividly remember even today with the same fearful vibes.

 

It is, indeed, very difficult to describe that dreadful moment in few sets of words. We had pre-Earthquake life, and we had post-Earthquake life as well, but in between, that 40 seconds, for everyone, was the same  phase: The rehearsal of the death! whether one was pauper or prosperous, everyone was in the same phase:  the state of powerlessness and fragility.