The kind lead the blind undergrads

Colombo University’s Alumni Association launches programme to find host families for visually-impaired students

Chithra Hemasili is a second year student at the Arts Faculty of the Colombo University. She is from Moneragala but the difficulties she faces are not of being in the city alone. Chithra is visually handicapped. Now, however, there is help at hand for Chithra. The university's Alumni Association has been instrumental in providing host families to help and support visually handicapped undergraduates.

“When I am with my host family, I feel at home. My parents are in Moneragala, so all this time I was in Colombo all alone. But now I feel more secure as I have some one to talk to or take advice from in case of a difficulty,” Chithra said. She said the Alumni Association's programme had helped students like her a great deal. “We visit our host families and they come to see us. Sometimes, they take us on outings, giving us an opportunity to break away from that monotonous life,” Chithra said.

The Alumni Association named its programme 'Friend and Guide Host Family' and launched it last week. Under this programme 27 students will be taken care of by a host family. History and International Relations Department head, Prof. Nayani Melegoda, who is also the secretary of the Alumni Association, said the university's Arts Faculty had the largest number of visually-impaired students.

She said financial assistance was not what the Alumni Association was expecting from host families but their time and commitment to the students they sponsor — to take them out, help them find reading material such as newspapers and novels and assist them to integrate into society.

“Since most of these students are coming from remote areas, it is important for them to have a friend and guide in Colombo. Being visually impaired, they are even marginalized in society. Now the students are hopeful and happy about this programme as they have someone to talk to,” Prof. Melegoda said.

She said a number of people had responded positively to their appeal and among those who had come forward are doctors, lawyers, top officials from the Attorney General's Department and others who are in a position to place them in society, help them find jobs and, above all, help them develop their personalities, improve presentation skills and build self confidence.

The Professor said that under the programme, the students would be in touch with the host families until they found employment. On its part, the Alumni Association has donated a micro tape-recorder along with a stationery pack to each visually-impaired student so that they could record their lectures. The History and International Relations Department is also conducting reading lessons for the visually-impaired students with lecturers allocating additional time throughout the week to read out books that the students bring in from libraries for their reference work.

The Friend and Guide scheme is not new. It has been in existence for some time and was reactivated with this host family programme for the visually handicapped undergraduates. Although the initial idea was to extend the project to all needy students in the Arts Faculty, due to the large student intake at the university, the focus was then shifted to the visually-handicapped as they were considered the most deserving.

The visually-handicapped students were appreciative of the move. A.G. Samanthika, from Galle and Chandima Lakmini from Weligama said thanks to the alumni, they now had the opportunity to show the world that they too could be on par with other students, provided they had the necessary facilities.

Kelum Prasanna, a second year student from Pugoda, said: “Earlier we always used to seek the assistance of a fellow student to provide us with the notes to convert the lessons to Braille, but no we take our own tape-recorders to the lecture rooms and later make our own notes. The special reading lessons arranged by the department's lecturers help us immensely as we can gather extra knowledge, especially by reading English books, with the help of the lecturers.”

Savitri Peiris, a member of a host family, said the student she is in charge of seems very studious and keen.“When I was introduced to her last week, I realised that she wants to do a lot in life. She is hoping to do an honours’ degree. She has already got registered to follow a counselling course so that there will be several options available for her to take up in the future. She also said she would like to learn IT and English. So I thought I can help her strengthen her English language skills,” Ms. Peiris said.

She said these students who came from outstation areas needed someone to confide in and to give them moral support.“The food they get in hostels is not very great. So once in a while we can prepare them a good meal or take them out for lunch,” Ms. Peiris said.

Anila Dias Bandaranaike, another sponsor, said: “We got so much from free education that we feel we too want to give something for the next generation. However, the relationship with these students will evolve based on what the students' needs are.”