I just ended a skype conversation with my colleague and friend Sristi KC, an amazing civil rights activist (Sristi is the founder of Blinds Rock!, www.blindrocks.org , an organization that that travels around the world to empower the blind and visually impaired people in all spheres of life) and .professional dancer from Nepal.
The occasion of the conversation was the celebration of International White Cane Day that is held every year on 15th of October.
Sristi is currently in Europe where she now pursuing her Master Degree in Dance Practice, Knowledge and Heritage at Choreo Mundus with an Erasmus Mundus Scholarship.
We chatted a bit about overall situation of blind people in Europe.
I found out that overall the situation in terms of accessibility and disable friendly policies and behaviors in Europe is mixed with some encouraging signs but also some gaps that must be filled.
Let’s start with a more rosy view of the current situation. According to Sristi there are many people around her, including, for example, members of the faculty at University of Szeged in Hungary where she is currently studying as part of her study program, that are extremely cooperative and supportive.
She also had an extremely supportive environment when as part of the same study program she was enrolled at Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and during her brief stint at Blaise Pascal University in France.
It is great to know that the higher education system in Europe is getting more and more open and inclusive but there is no space for complacency.
In Europe as well as around the world, according to Sristi, there are quite some challenges for persons with visual impairment to be accepted and enjoy the same opportunities like everyone else.
It seems that the concept of reasonable accommodation, doing what is possible and doable to support and facilitate persons with disabilities in their daily lives, be it in the professional or learning or personal life domains is still far from being implemented.
By the way, when we talk about reasonable accommodation, here we are not talking about “just” a nice thing to do but actually we are referring to a right based on the international law and therefore enforceable all over the world.
Yet moving from words to deeds seems to be still an insurmountable challenge.
The White Cane is actually one of the greatest tools that help accommodating the needs and the rights of persons living with disabilities.
To Sristi, the White Cane represents a door to the world, because without the white Cane, Sristi would have been more dependent on others to travel.
We all know that the pure essence of travelling is all about exploring yourself and become more and more independent. On road you challenge yourself and you end up knowing yourself much better and therefore you become a stronger person.
Sristi now has been travelling around the world since few years, in a quest of self development, in a journey that was also pushed by her life mission to make the world a more inclusive place by telling her life story and spreading the positive energies and vibrations from her dancing.
A long journey around the world that started with her fellowship program at Kantari, a fantastic social entrepreneurship institute based in Kerala, South India, a real stepping stone not only to further world explorations but also a great platform to build her inner force that made her a well known activist in Nepal and also around the world.
Sristi says “walking with White Cane, exploring the world with the White Cane open the door for the world to accept us. It is an empowering pool, people can indentify us through the cane us, they understand we are independent, they can accept us the way we are”.
Interesting Sristi also noticed during her workshops around the world that many visually impaired peers sometimes are shy of using their White Canes especially when they dress up smartly.
She has been participating in several fashion workshops where some of her colleagues were showing some hesitation using the White Cane while dressing up very nice fancy cloths like it was something spoiling their beauties.
Instead to Sristi, the White Cane is something very much related to her own identity and something to be very proud of, even when she dresses smartly.
Hopefully there will be a day when technological and scientific advancements will be at such level that blindness will be totally preventable and new technologies will be able to offer effective remedies to persons with visual impairment, but till then, we should all celebrate that magic wand called White Cane.
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