Wednesday 1 November 2017

HMI-IMF-SVH Mountaineering for the Blind: the first organized training of its kind in the world completes 28 years 1989-2017


Today 01 November 2017 is a very special day for the Society for the Visually Handicapped (SVH), Kolkata as exactly 28 years ago, on 01 Nov 1989 the first batch of Blind & Vision Impaired youths from West Bengal and Maharashtra participated in the Special Basic Course on Mountaineering conducted by the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling under the leadership of late Col Amit Roy and Nima Tashi Sir. Today looking back I find it was a time of deep turmoil, violence, agitation rocking the Darjeeling Hills. SVH organized this Course with grit and determination with support from the Indian Mountaineering Foundation, New Delhi. From 1989 to 2001 it was an annual course. Later there were interruptions and in 2017 we could conduct a short orientation program at HMI, Darjeeling.

Officials & volunteers of SVH remain ever so grateful to so many individuals and organizations for  spontaneous support to make this project a success! Many of our beloved members, well wishersm friends and donors are no more but they live afresh in our memories!