The doctor who treats the blind with education

An ophthalmologist by profession, Dr Jawahar runs a school for the blind at Ongole. In a world where getting a donor eye for the blind is considered hard and to get a donor eye for children, considered impossible, Dr Jawahar has performed almost 10 eye transplants for children. This he did with the help of a long standing campaign on eye donations done by him.

Lions School for Blind, a school for visually impaired children was started by Dr Banda Jawahar. Jawahar was known as a people’s doctor for his caring and understanding nature towards his paitients and their unstable finances. In an interaction with him, the then District Disabled Welfare Officer Vani shared her experiences with him and said that a well managed school for the blind is needed in the district. Motivated by that statement, DR Jawahar came up with this school.

The Lions School for Blind was started on June 30, 2006 by YS Vivekananda Reddy, brother of the then Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy. The school offers free education to blind children along with hostel facilities. The school started with a few LKG students being taught Braille. Now, there are more than 30 students in class 10. The monthly expenditure of the school and hostel comes up to about a lakh every month.

Dr Jawahar says, “We wanted to help the poor blind children, by gifting them education to survive the society. We are not expecting any grants or funds from the government or private organisations. What we have today is enough for us to run the school. We also want to extend our help to the children who want to pursue their further education.”

The students of Lions School for Blind are competent enough to face people with normal lifestyles. One student from the school received the Pratibha award from the government last year and several students received prizes in essay competition, quiz and debate organised by the authorities.

Indira Kumari joined the school in her LKG. Now she is in junior intermediate and says that it is the help of Dr Jawahar that brought her the confidence to live in the society. She said, “Dr Jawahar and his family have been looking after us like family. He is the father figure to all the students here. He has provided us the best atmosphere to study and learn the skills that support the life.”

Nagaraju and Srinivas, senior intermediate students also started their education in the blind school. “In our school, no student has failed till now. We scored more than 8GPA in 10th and intermediate first year and want to continue with the same percentage for the second year as well. Dr Jawahar takes care of all our needs of the students here, so we need not worry about a thing and concentrate on studies. As the opportunity came now, we thank him from the bottom of our hearts.”

The doctor who wanted to make a change is has been successful to his capacity. But the government, which should provide equal opportunities to the disabled, is neglecting its responsibility. Dr Jawahar said, “There are a number of blind students in the district. If the government steps up to put a blind school with facilities for the children, more number of them could be benefitted.”