By the time I was looking for a new place to take my wife and daughter during their last visit to Abimansala, I’ve got an exciting clue from our commandant. That was to visit a zoo managed by Gajaba Regiment at Saliyapura Anuradhapura. It was so peculiar that I haven’t heard of it before though I’ve been working in Anuradhapura ...
I’ve recently got an opportunity to attend a research symposium organized by KDU Rathmalana. I was invited to it by a friend of mine Mrs. Nirosha Wedisingha, a lecturer in KDU who presented a research paper at the symposium. The title of that particular paper was on “Eliminating Disability Digital Divide”. When the paper was prepared, my ideas and experiences ...
It’s been a while since I posted an article last, that is because I was seriously engaged with initiating the construction work of own house at Kurunegala. Mean time my wife had some issue at her family front so I felt I should write about it, sensing that it could be a new trend that would develop in Sri Lankan ...
Having red my previous article “Sighted friends –This is for you”. , the following article was written by one of my friend Ruwani De Silva Basically, this article is based on a Sinhalese teledrama named “Sanda” telecasted on ITN and the drama had been created on a story featuring a blind girl. I suppose, this article too will give you ...
The Sighted world is always a challenging place for those of us living with sight loss. There are many aspects of everyday life which require us to tackle many obstacles in order to live our lives to their full potential. To overcome some of those life challenges, blind or visually impaired person look for assistance from sighted persons. In this ...
As posson poya is about to dawn in a few days time, I felt that posting an article about an ancient Buddhist site which I recently visited would be appropriate. It was a day outing and was organized by the Abimansala –Anuradhapura with the aim of changing the monotonous of totally dependent war heroes. The day outing was planned to ...
Due to no or limited eye sight, blind or visually impaired persons have always been deprived from fully enjoying visual events such as a movie, tell drama, documentary, stage drama and sports event. On the other hand one might think that what the heck that blinded person could gain from a movie or visual medium, but one should not forget ...
It is no doubt that getting around is the most challenging aspect of a newly blinded person, so Mobility and orientation module is included In almost all rehab programs for blinds. Hence I also had received the white cane training at the army rehabilitation centre, but I have yet been struggling to get around independently in an unfamiliar environment. However ...
The playing of chess has become a favorite passion and hobby of many blind persons around the world. For me, it has helped to deal with not only with my blind friends but also with sighted companions on equal grounds. By and large, loss of vision has not affected me to learn and play chess but adoptive chess set is ...
One second is all it takes to know what time it is. That is, if you can see your watch or clock. On the other hand, if you are blind or have low vision, it would be a very different situation. You may even think of resorting to the help of others in doing this vital task due to the ...
Yenuli with her parents at 7th month Yenuli at 1 year with me and my parents at Anuradhapura Yenuli is playing with a little puppyI am posting this article to my little daughter who is still 1 year and 9 months old, knowing the fact that she is still not able to read this or understand any of these. Yet ...
I am posting this article to my little daughter who is still 1 year and 9 months old, knowing the fact that she is still not able to read this or understand any of these things. Yet I am certain one fine day she will read this and realise how she was brought up by her parents. Most of these ...
Since most of my previous articles were based on blindness, I just felt that posting something relevant to my personal life would be appropriate to have a bit of variety. This posting is about how I met my wife and got married. One day in the year 2007, one of my batch mates happened to stay at Ranaviru Sevana after ...
Reading is a very important aspect in human life. Some do this as a hobby while others do this as a way to gain knowledge& information. It has always been a problem to a blind or visually impaired person to read a book in its original form due to the fact that books are basically printed on a plain ...
For many people, the mobile phone is an essential communication tool, but their complexity and requirement of visual interaction has often made them difficult for blind and partially sighted people to use. Therefore, several screen reader software’s and applications have been developed to aid blind & visually impaired persons to get the full use of the mobile phone just as ...
The National Sportsmeet for the Disabled The same year the National meet was held at the Sugathadasa stadium with the participation of many civil athletes. In the national meet my performance was further improved and I was able to set-up three national records for the 100m, 200m and the long jump events for which I was presented with the award for ...
The long jump When I was schooling, the long jump was my strongest event and since I was doing fairly well in running, we decided to give it a try. First we practice the run-up; it began with 2 steps then 4 steps. Particularly in the long jump event of totally blind athletes, running in a straight line is the ...
I assumed that adding a video at the beginning of this posting would be more sensible than putting it at the end. One day I was invited to a party which was organised to share the joy of the 2002 FESPIC Games (Far-East and South Pacific Games) that were held in Busan, South Korea. There was an army officer, ...
More often than not, when I’ve been introduced to somebody who visits Abimansala-Anuradhapura, the following chunk of words is often used by the commandant- Lt. Col. Kanishka Bandara. “This is Major Dushyantha Yapa, our special education officer; he is totally blind but uses the computer very well”. Subsequent to that, a query is regularly raised by most of them asking ...
Following the medical treatment I had from India and also the other treatment from indigenous medicine to religious practices during the period from April 1999 to March 2000, it dawned to me that the possibility of seeing this world yet again through eyes was bare minimum unless a spectacular technological finding immerges or miracle takes place. When I was at ...
