Daily Life Problems, Struggle and Challenges Faced by Blind People

Blindness is one of the most, if not the most, misunderstood type of disability. The general masses have their own pre-conceived notions about the blind people that they firmly believe to be true without even getting in touch with a blind person. Most of the members of the non-blind community believe that the blind people cannot do their work or live a normal life. ‘My Son will not be a Beggar Be’ by Ved Mehta is a perfect example of the contradiction of society’s perspective and the reality of a blind person’s life.

Blind people do lead a normal life with their own style of doing things. But, they definitely face troubles due to inaccessible infrastructure and social challenges. Let us have an empathetic look at some of the daily life problems, struggles and challenges faced by the blind people.

Navigating Around Places

The biggest challenge for a blind person, especially the one with the complete loss of vision, is to navigate around places. Obviously, blind people roam easily around their house without any help because they know the position of everything in the house. People living with and visiting blind people must make sure not to move things around without informing or asking the blind person.

Commercial places can be made easily accessible for the blinds with tactile tiles. But, unfortunately, this is not done in most of the places. This creates a big problem for blind people who might want to visit the place.

Finding Reading Material

Blind people have a tough time finding good reading materials in accessible formats. Millions of people in India are blind but we do not have even the proper textbooks in braille, leave alone the novels and other leisure reading materials. Internet, the treasure trove of information and reading materials, too is mostly inaccessible for the blind people. Even though a blind person can use screen reading software but it does not make the Internet surfing experience very smooth if the websites are not designed accordingly. Blind person depends on the image description for understanding whatever is represented through pictures. But most of the time, websites do not provide clear image description.

Arranging Clothes

As most of the blind people depend on the objects’ shape and texture to identify them — arranging the laundry becomes a challenging task. Although a majority of blind people device their own technique to recognize and arrange at least their own clothes but it still is a challenging chore. This becomes a daredevil task if it’s about pairing and arranging the socks. All this is because recognizing colors is almost impossible for the persons with total blindness.

Overly Helpful Individuals

It is good to be kind and help others. But overly helpful individuals often create problems for the blind person. There are lots of individuals who get so excited to help a disabled person that they forget even to ask the person whether she needs help or not. A blind person might be doing something painfully slow (from your perspective) but you should not hurry in doing the work without asking the person properly. You might end up creating some trouble for the blind person.

Getting Devices to Become Independent

The most valuable thing for a disabled person is gaining independence. A blind person can lead an independent life with some specifically designed adaptive things for them. There are lots of adaptive equipment that can enable a blind person to live their life independently but they are not easily available in the local shops or markets. Refreshable Braille Display is an example of such useful devices. A blind person needs to hunt and put much effort to get each equipment that can take them one step closer towards independence.

Everyone faces challenges in their life… blind people face a lot more. But, this certainly does not mean that you can show sympathy to blind persons. They too, just like any individual, take up life’s challenges and live a normal life, even if it does not seem normal to the sighted individuals.

Are you a person with visual impairment? Please share with us the problems that you face in your day-to-day life. Sharing information can show path to the solution of many problems! Thank you for connecting with WeCapable!