What a Visually Impaired Person Says: There is a Flashlight Provider

Yakup, who is a civil servant in Bilecik Provincial Directorate of National Education, lives alone in Bilecik and apart from his family in İzmir due to his job. Like every disabled citizen, he struggles with important problems in daily life. After losing his sight 9 years ago, he realized that the state, society and technology companies did not care enough for the visually impaired and he has been interested in the subject since then. is an activist.

He shared with us his thoughts on solving the problems faced by the disabled. Today 3 December International Day of Persons with DisabilitiesWe would like to draw attention to this issue in .

Previously, he made an important call to technology companies “to make everything more accessible” through Webtekno.

His call was taken into account by some quarters.

We are quoting his explanations from his own mouth: Being disabled is not just a lack of a limb, it is much more.

For example, it is not enough to close your eyes to understand a visually impaired person, and it is not enough to just close your ear to understand a hearing impaired person. When I say this, a lot of people have completely negative thoughts saying, “Of course dear, you’re the one experiencing this.”

However, being disabled with pros and cons it is much more. From the outside, a person without any disability seems superior to me in terms of sense organs, since I am visually impaired. However, since the 4 sense organs in me try to make up for the lack of vision as well as fulfilling their own duties, I can sometimes be superior to that person. This shows that in order to understand a disabled person or to meet a need of a disabled person, it is necessary to address the existing limb, not the missing limb.

There are serious problems in societies in this regard. For example, an old uncle came to me and said, “Son, give me the walking stick in your hand, I will carry it; it will not be a burden to you.”

It has nothing to do with education level. An engineer told me, “Would it work if a flashlight was produced for the visually impaired?” he had asked. When he can’t see it himself, he lights the lantern and sees it, and he thinks we are too.

In fact, the majority of the society, both in our country and in the world, is sensitive enough about the disabled. However, because there is not enough consciousness, we encounter such tragicomic events.

You know, there is a saying, “How you become a nation, you will be governed”. Unfortunately, the states are the same in this regard. In the eyes of society, the states are the same as the disabled.

Society helps people with disabilities only in good faith, without trying to understand them. The states think that I served the disabled when they only give disability pension, when they implement discounts in some places and make positive discrimination in relation to the disabled.

Obviously, both the society and the state have great responsibilities regarding the disabled. First of all our We need to be understood. Because while everyone is designing this life, they exclude the disabled and then try to do something for the disabled with additions. Most of these things do not work because the disabled people are not understood enough.

In tourism, the disabled should be included in the star status of hotels. The disabled road feature should also be added to the navigation applications.

When a technological product produced does not appeal to the disabled, that product should be included in the scope of defective goods by the relevant institutions. More importantly, instead of rewarding those who do something about people with disabilities. Those who do not will be punished mechanisms need to be established.

In addition to all these, in order to develop more effective policies regarding the disabled, it is necessary for the states to exclude the disabled from the scope of social assistance. To be able to coordinate all institutions and all ministries, not a single institution or a ministry, of our problems and solutions. a more competent authority must be handled by

If these mechanisms are implemented, much more efficient work can be done with half of the budget allocated by the states for the disabled.

But we disabled people often because we are treated like beggars These requests are not taken into account at all. I am a disabled person who is at peace with himself personally. For example, I always say how happy those who see it are that I am sad that I do not see them. I’ve already overcome my own problems.

Only when people don’t understand me I realize that I am disabled. Rest assured, this obstacle is harder than not seeing it. You know, when they say “the main obstacle is in the brain”, because the real obstacle is in the brain, the most disabled people suffer.