Visually impaired students get lesson in hand wash

NAGPUR: To make visually impaired persons, whose life is mainly dependent on ‘touch’, aware about maintaining hand hygiene,

North Hills Rotary Club

of Nagpur, on Friday conducted a ‘Hand Washing’ workshop for 50 students of Dyan Jyoti Andha Vidyala, Nagalwadi.

“Trachoma, the leading cause of preventable blindness worldwide, is related to the lack of hand hygiene,” said Dr

Shubhada Khirwadkar

from the Club. “From crossing a road to reaching a destination, visually impaired people have to hold random hands from time to time. It’s common for them to touch different substances to find what they were searching for. Therefore, they are the primary people who should be aware of

hand wash

,” she said.

The workshop was conducted as a part of Global Hand Wash Day which was observed on October 15. The

Club

has organized a 15-day Hand Washing Marathon to mark the Day and has covered over 21 schools from the district so far.

The all women’s club has conducted over 50 such workshops in different schools in last two years under the campaign ‘Cleanliness and hygiene for children’ based on the logic that across 50% of infections can be checked if people wash hands regularly.

“We have composed a special two-minute song which incorporates all the steps involved in hand washing. Simultaneously, 6-7 volunteers from our club demonstrate the steps. Children enjoy the music as well as perform the steps,” said Khirwadkar.

Khirwadkar further said that at the blind school they faced a real challenge as the students could hear the music but couldn’t watch the demonstration. “So, each volunteer taught one kid at a time while the music was being played. Training was also given to the caretakers of the students. Taking inspiration from the workshop, one of the schoolteachers has decided to create a Braille script based on the song so that the students can regularly read it whenever they want,” she said.

A similar activity was organized 10 days ago for hearing-impaired students who could watch the demonstration but couldn’t listen to the music. To make it easy for the kids, they were asked to sit on the floor and a big drum was played close to them. The students could sense the vibrations and understand the switching points.