The Chandigarh-based Dialogue Highway Trust, conducted its 6th Blind Walk on Friday, the concept being to give an experience of feeling blind to sighted people by taking them on a short blindfolded walk. The walk was led by blind persons and participated by about 500 sighted persons with the motive to encourage people to donate eyes.
The event was organised to observe World Sight Day which falls in October every year.
Gurpreet Kaur, Wife of Kultar Singh Sandhwan, Speaker Punjab Assembly was Chief Guest on the Occasion. She appreciated the initiative of Devinder Sharma, Managing Trustee of Dialogue Highway and his team for sensitizing the people towards blindness of people in India.
Harbhajan Mann, Actor, Director from Punjabi film industry was also present and motivated the people present to support Dialogue Highway for the noble cause. Gurpreet Singh (Ghuggi), Comedian, Producer also appreciated the initiative and entertained the participants in his own style. Sonia Mann, Actress, Model expressed her gratitude to the team for their efforts for such a noble cause and appealed to the general public to donate their eyes.
Devinder Sharma shared experiences of Dialogue Highway while organising the walk while Anil Sharma, Member Secretary, said that World Sight Day is observed under the aegis of World Health Organisation (WHO) and National Program for the Prevention of Blindness - Government of India. India has more than one third of the world's 39 million blind persons, which is 15 million and therefore it is necessary for us to highlight their issues on that day.
20 blind students from the local Blind Institute led the walk. The guests along with more than 550 students from different schools walked blindfolded and experienced the feeling of being blind.