Diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa at the age of 6, Shobha Patil from Gadag district of Karnataka is left with only 25% vision. Rising above her disability, she continued to study and completed her Master’s degree in Commerce.
Shobha, who is now 31 years old aspires to work and become financially independent, but her family is adamant to only let her work in government sector jobs.To make the most of this opportunity, she started to look for coaching centers that cater to people with vision impairment. On a friend’s recommendation, she contacted Eyeway Helpdesk in August to seek help with her search.
Fortunately for Shobha, around the same time our partner organization- Enable India in Bangalore was conducting ‘Aptitude Training for Competitive Exams’, a training for visually impaired preparing to write government employment exams. The Eyeway counsellor apprised her about the training and motivated her to shift from her city to avail the benefits of these classes.
The only challenge was now to convince her family to support her decision so she could pursue her dream of becoming financially independent. Trainers at Enable India counselled her family and demonstrated to them how visually impaired people were leading successful and independent lives in various parts of the country. The collective effort of the counsellors and trainers paid off and she came to Bangalore to complete the training.
After recently writing an exam, a very happy and confident Shobha shared, “I had very little confidence when it came to doing mental calculations. Seeing all my peers do the same with ease, inspired me to learn how to do it. Also, in my earlier attempts, I had scored nil in English. But after this training, I am confident that I will score at least the cut off marks in the upcoming exams.”