2024 SVH DR HELEN KELLER DEAFBLIND AWARENESS DAY

On 01 July 2024 Monday Society for the Visually Handicapped SVH), Kolkata, India observed jointly with Sanskrit Sahitya Parishat (SSP), Kolkata, a program to sensitize people about the abilities of Blind & DeafBlind Persons. The program started at 1 PM with an inaugural song by Nilratan Bala, a Blind teachers teaching in a general school. This program had three speakers: Speaker no 1 Mr Sujon Bose, Vision Impaired educationist, highlighted the need for persons with Vision Impairment to know their smartphone in detail to access information of their choice. Speaker no 2 Mrs Chandra Mukhopadhyay, a retired English school teacher spoke about her field collection of songs composed and sung by illiterate, deprived, underprivileged women communicating their joys and sorrows through singing while celebrating various occasions of human life. She presented her experiences while collecting these songs from women hailing from remote areas, songs which have gone down generations orally. Through her presentation she aroused deep motivation and compassion among the audience about this least discussed area of womens' survival! Name of her Facebook channel is GEEDALI. Speaker no 3: Dr Mrs Ruma Chatterjee, founder-secretary, Kolkata Society for the Empowerment of the Differently Abled (KSIDA) which delivers services to DeafBlind children and adults. Dr Chatterjee pointed out the difficulties in empowering persons with multi-disabilities with functional skills, education and vocational training. This program ended at 2.45 PM. Next program on the same venue same date same tine was hosted by Bangla Book Lovers (BBL) You Tube channel initiated and maintained by a group of Blind students and professionals whose goal is to store and generate audio versions from rich Bengali literary works. They celebrated their foundation day on this occasion. All expenses including food for 130 persons were borne by the Society for the Visually Handicapped.