On the one side, visually-challenged girls are being taught to make flower arrangements. On the other side, they are being taught to walk with a cane.
As many as 30 of them have come from colleges and universities from Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka to get trained in simple everyday skills that family members may not be able to make them learn.
The mobility exercise and flower arrangement are being taught to them as part of a leadership training programme organised jointly by UDIS Forum and Avinashilingam University for Women. They are two components of the five-day training to equip the visually challenged to gain home management skills to enable them lead independent lives.
“Visually challenged girls taking up higher education is on the rise and there are some who have completed doctorates to get good jobs. But on the domestic front, they are found to lack even the basic skills.
It is because of this reason and not because of their disability that they are not being considered for marriage. Even if the girl is qualified and able to earn a good income, they become a liability both in parental as well as in homes they are married into when they are not well versed in domestic skills,” says Premavathy Vijayan, head, Department of Special Education of the University.
The training focuses on mobility skills, household skills such as cooking, laying the table, making the bed, personality development skills, communication skills, yoga and laughter therapy.
This is the third edition and those who have undergone the orientation in the earlier years have shown positive response, teachers and parents of the girls say.
M.R. Thilagam, professor, Department of Resource Management of the university, who was teaching the girls to arrange flowers, said that they showed great interest in learning the techniques.
“They are taught to feel the leaves and flowers for texture and size, and to cut them to size according to the arrangement desired,” she said.
Parents and teachers said that even if the visually challenged girls score 100 marks in their course, it became irrelevant if they were not able to manage homes.
The training was seen as a means to instil confidence in them to manage a home and a profession.
