NATIONAL award-winning blind author Jennifer Daulat-Araujo expressed hope her new book will improve equality for the blind and visually impaired in this country.
"Going through it I realised there are so many questions that the sighted do not understand about the visually impaired and the blind. So many questions were asked that I realised the book will be an inspiration, I hope, to those who want to know more about us and to work (alongside) us and to treat us as equal with everybody else."
She was speaking at the launch of her book An Insight Into Living with Blindness held on October 12 at the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business (GSB), Mount Hope – the date was chosen to commemorate World Sight Day.
Daulat-Araujo told the audience she started the book before her retirement as a welfare officer of the Trinidad and Tobago Blind Welfare Association (TTBWA) and completed it during the covid19 pandemic.
She said her first book, Windows to the Worlds of the Blind, was a compilation of articles she wrote as a columnist for Newsday and was dedicated to her mother.
"She saw the importance of education to have us come out of poverty."
She said her second book, Braille Manual – A Guide to Enable the Sighted to Read and Write Braille, was dedicated to her father who ensured she received an education after she failed the Common Entrance exam.
"He said to me, 'I will send you to school, I will pay for you to go to school, that you get an education just like everybody else.'"
Daulat-Araujo became emotional at various points of her speech, especially when speaking about her parents, and told the audience it was because she has an "emotional life."
She said her new book is dedicated to her clients at the TTBWA where she worked in the areas of welfare and rehabilitation for more than 31 years.
"Without you, I would not be standing here today."
Daulat-Araujo, who received a Humming Bird Medal (Silver) for Public Service in 2012, said that if anyone has knowledge and does not share it then it is of no use. She added that she was planning to write another book.
[caption id="attachment_1042309" align="alignnone" width="768"] Blind author Jennifer Daulat-Araujo holds her new book, An Insight Into Living with Blindness, while chatting with extempo champion Joseph Vautor-La Placeliere, the Mighty Lingo, who is also blind, during a book launch held last week at the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business, Mount Hope. - Julien Neaves[/caption]
An Insight Into Living with Blindness is 32 pages long with 20 chapters on topics starting with The Work for the Blind in Trinidad and Tobago: A Brief Historical Overview and ending with Employment of Persons with Vision Impairment. The book covers a range of areas including medical, technological and advice for interacting with a vision-impaired person.
Optometrist and attorney Petra Bridgemohan in her foreword to the book recommended the text as required reading for eyecare professionals, optometrists and ophthalmologists in training at the University of the W
