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When we come across a blind person along with a white-cane, we do not bother about the white-cane, which he holds for his proper mobility. Yes, there is a big story behind the white-cane. Every year, October-15 is observed as the ‘White-Cane Day’ all over the world to mark the invention of long, light and functional cane, made of light-weight aluminium, by Dr. Richard E. Hoover, an American sergeant for giving proper mobility to the blind people.
Sightlessness, besides other limitations, greatly restricts one’s ability to move about independently. Un-interrupted ‘Orientation and Mobility’ is a pre-requisite for the blind individual’s integration into the mainstream of socio-economic life. The need to train the visually handicapped people was stressed ever since the work for the social integration and economic rehabilitation of the blind started. The people working for the blind paid attention towards finding out solution for this formidable problem.
Before, 1945, the blind people were using rods, shephered’s crooks and sticks as their guide and friend when moving alone from one place to another place. They did not know how to reach a particular place properly. After hearing these mobility problem of the blind community, Dr. Richard E. Hoover who was working with the blinded soldiers during the Second World War, developed a systematic method of foot-travel for the blind with the help of a long, light, functional cane made of light weight aluminium. This is called ‘White-cane’ Dr. Hoover developed this white-cane in 1945 at the Veterans Administration Hospital, Illionis, USA. The Veterans Administration also started a programme, called ‘Orientation and Mobility’ to teach the techniques of Dr. Hoover to the blind community. Accordingly, a few colleges instituted graduate and under-graduate programme in Orientation and Mobility. The first two graduate Programmes were introduced at Boston College and Weston Michigan University in 1960. An instructor, who graduates from the Weston Michigan is called ‘Orientation and Mobility Specialist’ and one who graduates from the Boston college is called ‘Peripatologist’. Both are terms meaning, ‘a person who is trained in the science of teaching the foot-travel for the visually handicapped’ people. As the part of this training, the instructors must learn how to travel with cane by foot, wearing blind-fold. Some important terms are used in the orientation and mobility techniques. They are:
Orientation: It is the awareness of one’s Physical Position in relation-ship to all other objects in the environment.
Mobility: It is the ability to move from one position to another position or direction confidently.
Land-mark: Any familiar sound, object, smell, temperature and clues which are very easily recognized and that have well-known and fixed location in the environment.
Clue: Any sound smell, temperature and tangible experience which is to be used to help, determine one’s position or direction, which is temporary in the environment.
Veering: The tendency to move or to turn slightly to right or left rather than to walk in a straight line. The ideal weight of a white-cane should be 8-10 ounces.
Mobility Training in India
Dr. Helen Keller, the President of the American Foundation for the Overseas Blind started an ‘Orientation and Mobility’ training camp in Kualalampur, capital of Malasiya to train the instructors of the ‘Orientation and Mobility’ from different parts of Asia. In the Kualalampur camp, a number of Indians also got the training in mobility and became masters in the mobility techniques.
Realising the importance of the Orientation and mobility training for the visually handicapped people, the Government of India, Ministry of Social Welfare, started the mobility programme for the instructors of the blind in October-1971 at the National Centre for the Blind. Presently known as National Institute for the Visually Handicapped at Dehra Dun in Uttar Pradesh. The duration of the training is for 16 weeks.
The instructors of the Orientation and Mobility should teach the blind as per specific steps. They are :
The instructors should teach the visually handicapped how to walk without veering and also how to walk by following the land-marks and clue.
The blind should be taught the orientation of a particular place, where he moves daily, so that he can be a master in the particular place of his daily movement.
He should also be taught how to eat properly and how to find-out his chair, bed how to recognize his friends.
He should also be taught how to behave with his superiors, parents, friends and others.
The blind should also be taught the techniques of ascending and descending, so that a blind can board a public transport bus without any problem.
The instructors of the blind should teach the techniques of trailing the wall and squaring the wall, pre-cane skills and two-point touch techniques.
Above all, the blind should be taught how to wear his dress properly and how to take it off.
People would know the value of the precious gift of God (eye-sight), only when they loose it. Therefore, let us learn to help the handicapped people. We should not ridicule the disabled by making a mention of their deformities. Anything can happen to anyone at any-time, any moment.
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