Manish (name changed) visited the Eyeway center in Delhi with his parents on 16th October 2017. He is a 15-year-old boy pursuing Class 10 in DPS Sushant Lok. He lives with his parents and younger brother in Gurgaon. His vision is affected by Coloboma (a hole in one of the structures of the eye, such as the iris, retina, choroid, or optic disc) since birth but his vision impairment was noticed only when he was in Class 1. He has had few retinal detachment surgeries to prevent total blindness. He was referred to Eyeway by Dr. Varshini Shanker of Shroff Charity Eye Hospital and also by one of our trustees, Rajive Raturi.
Kanishq is passionate about studying Chemistry in his higher classes. But he is unsure and apprehensive of the possibility of following his passion given his eye condition. His school teachers have already suggested exempting him from Math education as it is hard to teach the subject to someone with vision loss. Kanishq wanted to know if he could still study Chemistry despite the fact that he had to drop out his Math class.
He was also curious to learn about career options open for a blind person. He even expressed a desire to pursue Cricket as a career as he extremely enjoyed the sport. We suggested him legal profession as a possible career route.
Manish’s family was completely unaware of the laws and provisions in place for visually impaired people. We suggested them to read up on the latest RPWD Act and we also sent them details of the CBSE rules and provisions for blind students. We recommended him to start using computers for his classwork and exams. Eyeway advised his parents to talk to the school authorities to switch his mode of studies from writing to computers. We also suggested that the school authorities should inform CBSE so they can send appropriate question papers in soft copies in the future.
At this point, it seemed Manish’s main concern was to learn about ways that could help him to cope with his studies. Eyeway suggested him to visit Saksham to learn more about assistive technology and textbooks in accessible formats.