Visually challenged students awarded

CHENNAI: Thirty visually challenged college girls in the city were presented awards on Wednesday, as part of an initiative to motivate them. The project, titled ‘Karna Vidyalaya’, an effort by the Rotary Club of Madras Coromandel, conducted the even at the Ramakrishna Mission Sarada Vidyalaya School in T Nagar. “This is something we hope to do annually in a structured manner,” said G Balasubrahmanyam, Rotary Club President. The students, mostly studying at the undergraduate level from various colleges around the city, were awarded based on their performance in multiple competitions that varied from sports to poetry, dance, elocution and braille writing. Balasubrahmanyam added, “This is to encourage all round development among these visually challenged girls.”These competitions were held during a bi-weekly reading session conducted at the project’s centres — Bharath Senior Secondary School, Adyar and Ramakrishna Mission Sarada Vidyalaya School, T Nagar.As part of the function, the students were also addressed by M Ilango, a successful visually challenged soft skills entrepreneur. Ilango said, “I was amazed at some of the accomplishments these girls have made in areas such as life skills, spoken English and communication.” With a strong team of 150 volunteers, as well as a fully equipped Braille library (Tamil and English) in the pipeline, it seems visually challenged students in Chennai have much to look forward to.