Vijayawada: Scholarships to visually impaired students

Vijayawada: Society must come forward to accept and treat visually impaired persons on par with any other person, said Fr Sahayaraj, the correspondent of Andhra Loyola College. He addressed the 'Abilities Day' programme here on Monday organised by Higher Education for Persons with Special Needs (HEPSN) wing of Andhra Loyola College in order to bring out talent of students with visual impairments and make them successful in life.

In all, five competitions were held exclusively for 63 visually impaired students from Vijayawada and Guntur. The unique competitions like Fastest Fingers First enabled students to explore their typing capabilities on a laptop using NVDA software. In 'Guess the item' students need to identify the objects and grocery items using the two senses touch and smell. There were also competitions like speech on the given topic, singing and quiz. Visually impaired students from AC College, Govt Degree College and Hindu College from Guntur, Andhra Loyola College, SRR College, Maris Stella College and Acharya Nagarjuna University participated in all the five competitions.

G Arulammal Memorial trophy for the overall champions was bagged by the students of Hindu College, who have scored 172/200 points. The Runner's trophy was presented to Andhra Loyola College with 165/200 points. In the afternoon, scholarships were distributed. Chennai-based Help the Blind Foundation provided scholarships worth Rs 6.3 lakh to 63 visually impaired students each one receiving Rs 10,000 for this academic year.

Operational Director of Village Reconstruction Organisation (VRO) Fr Peter Daniel, who was the chief guest, said that if any person can do something as a person and achieve, the same can be done by all including visually impaired persons. "You miss only one sense whereas other senses are intact. You can achieve anything if you have passion." Srinivas PVK from Samarthanam Trust, trustees of Help the Blind Foundation Sivaji Rao, Deepa Krishnamoorthy and Nataraj Sankaran also spoke.

Former provincial Fr Bosco, Coordinator of HEPSN Dr G Sahaya Baskaran and volunteers of HEPSN attended the function. Visually impaired students thanked the Foundation for the financial support.