The National Association for the Blind, in association with the Madras Motor Sports Club, organised a car rally for persons with visual disability here on Sunday.
The rally was organised as part of its golden jubilee celebrations of the Association. A total of 81 persons with visual disability participated. The navigators were given the route map in Braille and the other team members were totally dependent on the navigators in the rally.
A. Vijayakumar, one of the participants with visual disability, said that the rally was an opportunity for people like him to interact with others.
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“We are able to know so much from each other,” he added. Mr. Vijayakumar, who is one of the faculty members of the Department of English, Presidency College, stressed the need for more such events in which the route map was given in Braille. “This will encourage more persons with disability to learn Braille. Learning Braille will make the people with disability more independent,” he said. There was a tendency to give less importance to Braille literacy in schools these days, he said. These events were an opportunity for the society to accept people with disability, said S. Nagarajan, a participant who is a lecturer in a government college in Villupuram. C. Manjula, another participant, said that the event gave her confidence to tackle the challenges faced on account of being a person with disability. Ms. Manjula is waiting for a government job. Reetha Kumar, one of her teammates, said that the event gave them an opportunity to understand how intelligent the persons with disability were.