Introduction – Agra Convention 2014
It was nothing short of a milestone in the history of visually impaired people of India when more than a hundred of them from across the country stepped away from their routine lives to come all the way to Agra to take part in a groundbreaking event – Agra Convention: Blind Stars Beyond Facebook Bridging the Gap. The event was the culmination of an initiative taken by some visually impaired people 2 years ago when they decided to create a network of such people on the social networking site Facebook and named it
Blind Stars The group was formed on 25th October, 2012 and as of now has 4,000 members. The event was planned and organized by Antardrishti and Blind Stars in association with:
- Department of Social Work, Institute of Social Sciences, Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar University, Agra
- YMCA, Agra
- Akansha Samiti, Agra
- POOL Magazine
The event took place in the Jubilee Hall of the Paliwal Park campus of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar University, Agra and St. John’s Girls Inter College, Agra over the course of three days 7, 8 and 9 November 2014. It was attended by 160 visually impaired people from different states of the country like Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, and Rajasthan. The delegates were provided accommodation in Hotel Goverdhan, Hotel Shilaza, Hotel Ashoka and Hotel Pall.
The event witnessed discussions on issues relevant to the current status of a visually impaired person in today’s society.
The broad theme/objective of the convention:
To create and highlight discourses about the social and economic Inclusion of visually impaired people of our country. The discussions featured experts from various fields with experience and insights on the relevant issues.
- Shattering myths about the visually impaired.
- Creating awareness in the society as to how people with disabilities could be an asset to the nation.
- Inspiring and guiding the visually impaired people who have yet not realized their own worth and potential and making them aware of their rights.
- Sensitization of the society towards the visually impaired.
- The position of a visually impaired girl and challenges faced by her due to gender discrimination.
- Blind people as a part of the nation’s workforce.
The discussions were divided into 9 brainstorming sessions spanning over 3 days. On the last day of the event, the “Agra Declaration” was released taking cues from all the discussions held over the three days.
Read the full report – Agra Convention 2014 – Report – HTML with Audio/Video
