Vision impaired Tuan enlightens his kind

Vision impaired Tuan enlightens his kind

By Chanaka de Silva

25th August 2015

"Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." the poignant poem by Dilan Thomas gives strength to fight on, no matter what the odds. Such is the nature of the young man Tuan Mohammed Rushdi cassim. A person whose unfailing courage has pushed him to achieve thing that many, without any difficulty would envy and do well to emulate.

Rushdi experienced vision problems and colour blindness at an early age. Though undeterred he carried on with the plate, life served him. Doing well academically he only wanted to achieve the goals he had set out. And achieve them he will. During the 3rd year of his degree in Management Information Systems at NIBM, things took a turn for the worst. His failing sight progressed very quickly.

Tuan was diagnosed with Retinitis pigmentosa a visual impairment in 2009. "At first some of the coloured segments of the slides, during lectures could not be seen," he said. But I thought this was normal. By the time I completed my degree, I could barely see. A condition that causes damage to the retina, resulting in sever vision impairment and even blindness. There is no known cure.

Determined not to be put down, Tuan landed a job at a wedding decoration firm. But it was even more disheartening when his handicap forced him to quit only a week after he started his job. "I hung around a bus stop for 40 minutes after I was let go. I was at a loss as to what to do," says Tuan.

Along way since then, Tuan spent two years at home looking for a job. He hasn't stop looking yet. He finally picked himself up and took up Braille, in 2013, to face the challenges ahead of him. "I didn't want to abandon my studies," says Tuan. He had his primary education at Carey College. But after the

Vision impairment set in, he took a course from the Sri Lanka Council for the Blind (SLCB) that enable him to operate the computer without having to look at the screen, through a specially designed software. He also learned to use the white cane at the SLCB.

Tuan's courage paid off and now has an Advance National Diploma in Human Resource Management from NIBM and a Diploma in Psychology from American College of Higher Education both under his belt. He is currently reading for his MBA at the Human Resource Management Institute. When asked about his multidisciplinary portfolio, he said that HR and Psychology are additional qualifications. "Besides I was always good at psychology, even at school"

Apart from his education qualifications, Tuan is an adept chess player. He was placed second at the all-island visually impaired chess tournament. He is a swimmer trained under Julian Bolling and is also a member of the SLCB cricket team.

Tuan is unique not the fact that he picked himself up, but the fact that he is able to help others like him through his web site for entrepreneurs with visual impairment. The web site, Entrepreneurs with Disabilities (www.entrepreneurs-with-disabilities.com),  is a multidisciplinary platform in which entrepreneurs of different vocations such as candle making, acupuncture, musicians can advertise their services, at no cost to them. "Customers can contact them directly without a middlemen," explain Tuan. The web site is totally dependent on donations. When asked what he hopes to gain from maintaining the web site, Tuan says "At SLCB I met many visually impaired people who engage in business," he explained that there is no market for products and services by people with disabilities and that he hopes to help them find this niche market through this web site.

"I intend to promote the web site as an Information Base on entrepreneurs with disabilities, their products and increase their exposure."

To help others who are in a similar condition is the ambition Tuan craves for. Tuan is currently in the process of collecting data of entrepreneurs with visual impairments. With the correct type of help he can not only do this but do it well indeed.

When ask about his future plans, Tuan confided that he hopes to develop a screen reading software distance learning course in both Sinhala and English mediums for visually impaired people. "Not many institutes offer computer screen reading courses and it's difficult for visually impaired people to travel for the few places that do offer such courses"

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