A round table was held at KBSU for the International Day of the Blind

November 21, 2023 at Kabardino-Balkarian State University named after Kh. M. Berbekov held a round table dedicated to the International White Cane Day and the International Day of the Blind.

The organizers of the meeting — the department of inclusive education and the KBSU library — drew the attention of university students to the problems of people with visual impairments.

It is difficult for sighted people to imagine the life of a blind person, the daily difficulties that he faces in everyday life. All the more admirable is the experience of those whom complete blindness or a very small percentage of vision not only did not break, but made them strong and successful. Today with us is Dmitry Dimitrichenko, a candidate of technical sciences, a senior researcher at the department of neuroinformatics and machine learning at the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Automation of the Kaliningrad Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Olga Vilkovskaya, our 1st year student in the “Philology” direction at the Social Sciences and Humanities Institute. Despite the fact that they are visually impaired, their life is an example of the fact that physical features are not an obstacle to finding oneself,

– noted the head of the department of inclusive education of KBSU Lyudmila Nastueva.

She recalled that White Cane Day, a symbol of blind people, was established on October 15, 1970 at the initiative of the International Federation of the Blind. The All-Russian Society of the Blind joined the White Cane Day in 1987. And on November 13, on the birthday of Valentin Gayuy, a famous teacher who founded several schools and enterprises for the blind in Paris and St. Petersburg, by decision of the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Day of the Blind was established, the main goal of which is to attract the attention of the general public to those who lost his sight forever and found himself in a difficult life situation.

Dmitry Dimitrichenko told his story:

Vision problems did not prevent me from going to university, starting my studies, that is, overcoming myself and external obstacles. This is work, first of all, on yourself and adapting yourself to the environment. When I was at university, there were certain difficulties. It was necessary to order special literature from Moscow. It is always more difficult with literature on the exact sciences, because the same formulas in documents are not very well voiced by sound programs. The teachers were always helpful and helpful. And with the advent of the opportunity to work on a computer, I transferred to the department of applied mathematics in order to master programs on an equal basis with everyone else. In 1999, he entered graduate school at the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Automation of the Kaliningrad Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences, from which he graduated three years later. And in 2013 I defended my Ph.D. thesis and all this time I have been working on the staff of the same institute, where there are computers, where there are programmers, where mathematical logic is needed.

And then the students shared posts about famous blind people. Not everyone even knows that some of them were blind. But these people, through their actions, were able to change the world that they could not even see.

SHI student Olga Vilkovskaya told Louis Braille about the man without whom it is impossible to imagine the lives of today’s blind people. Louis Braille is the creator of the raised dot font, thanks to which blind people around the world can read and write, work on a computer and play musical instruments using notes. Louis Braille went blind in early childhood, and created his typeface at the age of 15, in 1824.

SHI student Zulfiya Kozhukova reported on one of the most mentally strong blind women, Hellen Keller.

Many believe that this woman was the most famous visually impaired person of all times. After all, she overcame difficult obstacles in order not only to live an ordinary life, but also to make it extraordinary. Helen was born in 1880 in Alabama. At the age of one and a half, the girl became blind and deaf due to a childhood illness. Nevertheless, Keller was able to graduate from college, get married, and begin writing articles. As a result, quite a lot of them were published in magazines. And the book “The Story of My Life” became a world bestseller, being published in more than 50 languages. During her life, Keller traveled all over the world, met with the heads of 12 countries, received several honorary doctorates and numerous awards. In 1962, Keller and Sullivan’s story became the basis for the Oscar-winning film The Miracle Worker. The woman became known for her inspiring speeches about the possibility of overcoming any obstacles. Keller wrote: “Character cannot develop in a quiet and simple environment. Only through experience, trial and suffering can the soul be tempered, ambition and inspiration for success developed.”

SHI student Arina Zenets spoke about the fate of the famous impressionist artist Claude Monet.

Monet’s style is based on complex short brushstrokes and dots of contrast. Up close, the paintings looked quite chaotic. But as soon as you moved a little further, the large-scale canvas acquired a beautiful and soft focus. Monet’s most famous works are «Water Lilies» and «Sunflowers». Many critics later asked how the artist’s loss of vision due to several cataracts affected the style of his work. Monet died in 1926. His paintings are now worth millions; any significant museum dreams of owning the paintings of this impressionist. Today they are in the Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

IHB student Adelina Tatrokova spoke about the famous Italian scientist — physicist, mechanics, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer Galileo Galilei.

Galileo Galilei was visually impaired when he first looked at the planets and stars through the telescope he created and said that the Earth revolved around the Sun. He saw the planets of the solar system and the Milky Way not as a strip of light, but as individual luminaries.

A well-known conflict with the Catholic Church forced Galileo to renounce his discoveries. At the end of his life, he was completely blind due to cataracts and was placed under house arrest. But still, his scientific activity continued, with the help of his students. The great scientist himself said in a letter: “Even in the darkness that has engulfed me, I do not stop constructing reasoning about one or another natural phenomenon, and I could not give my restless mind rest, even if I wished for it.”

The experience of such people is truly admirable. Their illness did not become an obstacle to the great discoveries and achievements that they made. This means there is no need to fall into despair if you are limited in your physical capabilities. You need to believe in the best, study a lot, fight, and then everything will work out and your dreams will come true. And at KBSU all conditions have been created for this,

– Lyudmila Nastueva summed up the meeting.