In this episode of Eyeway Conversations, George Abraham speaks with, Sabriye Tenberken, a German Tibetologist and co-founder of the organization Braille Without Borders.

Sabriye became totally blind by the age of twelve due to Retinitis Pigmentosa, a degenerative eye condition. Despite a setback at an early age, she learned to deal with her blindness. An adventurer at heart, she wanted to travel the world.

After completing High school at an Institute for the Blind in Germany, Sabriye enrolled at the University of Bonn and focused her studies on central Asia. She was the only blind student out of the thirty thousand. With no Tibetan texts available in braille, she developed her own method of translating the Tibetan language into braille. It later became the officially recognized Tibetan Braille.

Sabriye left college to travel alone to China. She traveled on horseback from China through rural Tibet and discovered a deep prejudice against the blind children who were shunned and hidden away from the world. She talked to parents about enrolling their blind children in the residential school she planned to open in Lhasa. She persuaded them that their children, too, could learn to read and write, and even ride a horse.

Committed to bringing a change in the lives of these children, Sabriye along with her partner, Paul Kronenberg started Braille Without Borders (BWB), a nonprofit organization. In addition to the school in Lhasa, BWB runs a vocational training centre for blind adults with a farm and cheese factory near Shigatse.

In 2009, they also set up kanthari International at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, an educational and training institute, where they train social entrepreneurs from various vulnerable groups with all the required tools and skills to drive social change.

Tune in to learn more about her social venture in India and her story of courage, resilience, and determination! https://anchor.fm/eyeway/episodes/Eyeway-Conversations-With-Sabriye-Tenberken-e1iu436

To access the podcast transcript, click on link: https://otter.ai/u/BCcqY4uOJ7PoGbIzyOxXZSZO-XY