Out of a population of 2.5 million, the official figure for the number of blind in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) is 10.000, compared with most regions in the world this is extremely high. The cause of this anomaly is both climatic and hygienic: dust, wind, high UV Light, soot in houses from burning coal and yak-dung, lack of vitamin A, inadequate medical care in remote areas. Blind children in the TAR currently have no access to education. They live on the margin of society and only in rare instances do they experience any amount of integration. Cataracts are widespread, the Red Cross and several private organisations set up eye-camps where medical operations are being performed and local doctors are taught to do the procedure. However there are many cases of blindness in the TAR that can not be helped in this way. It was for this group that the Project for the Blind, Tibet was established.

In the summer of 1997 Sabriye Tenberken, blind herself, travelled within the T.A.R to investigate the possibility of providing training for Tibetan blind and visually impaired people. Sabriye realised that there were not any programs educating and rehabilitating blind people within the TAR. She then took the initiative to found the present project. For the start of the project she received help from a local school in Lhasa which provided space. A local counterpart took care of all the official paperwork.

Initially for her own use in her study of Tibetology at Bonn University, Sabriye developed a Tibetan script for the blind. This script combines the principles of the Braille system with the special features of the Tibetan syllable-based script. This script for the blind was submitted for close examination to an eminent Tibetan scholar, Loden Sherap Dagyab Rinpoche, who found it to be readily understandable, simple, and easy to learn. As Tibetans until now had had no script for the blind, he suggested to Sabriye that she let blind Tibetans take use of it.

Since the population of blind people in the T.A.R. is very widespread, it has been decided to board the children in Lhasa and train them there. From a financial and organisational perspective it would simply be too complicated to set up an individual training program in these very remote areas. With blind people boarding in the school, training and education can be given much more effectively. Being taken out of their familiar surroundings for a certain period of time, they will have to adjust to a new environment. This helps them to accept and learn the techniques for the blind more easily. Additionally the blind have the opportunity to communicate with other blind people and exchange experiences and problems they face in their particular home situations. During their one or two years of training, they hopefully will gain enough self-confidence to cope with daily life independently, with the goal of integrating the children into local elementary schools by the end of this period. Four programs are planned at the Training Centre for the Blind in the T.A.R.

The school for the Blind provides classes and housing for children aged between 7 and 13. Tibetan, Chinese, English and mathematics are the school subjects. Chinese and Tibetan Braille, mobility training and daily livings skills are taught. At present 21 blind children receive education.

This is a large program that will be set up in small steps. The following are possible professions that could be performed by blind people in the T.A.R.:

• Tibetan and Chinese traditional medical massage, medicine, nursery, pulse diagnosis, acupressure.
• Animal husbandry: Milk, Yoghurt, and Cheese-production
• Agriculture: Cultivating vegetable and grains.
• Handicraft: Knitting, Carpentry, Weaving, Pottery, Basket making.
• In the future blind people with an education could also be trained in office work, English, accounting, basic computing, bookkeeping programs.

To provide educational materials for the children that attend the school for the blind, a workshop for the production of Tibetan Braille schoolbooks will be established. A computer program to convert written Tibetan into Tibetan Braille has been developed by a German blind mathematician, Eberhard Hahn. Tibetan texts can be typed into a computer through Wylie transliteration, and the program converts this transliteration into Tibetan Braille, which then can be printed with the use of a Braille printer.

After re-integration into local elementary schools, the children will receive regular supervision by fieldworkers from Lhasa. These fieldworkers record their progress and deliver all necessary special equipment for the blind such as: Braille typewriters, schoolbooks and paper. Adults and adolescents who receive vocational training in Lhasa will be integrated into working life in their villages.

Special trainers will train and co-ordinate the fieldworkers. Fieldworkers will learn the basics of Tibetan and Chinese Braille, orientation techniques and daily living skills for the blind. The fieldworkers assist village teachers who integrate blind children into their classes. These village teachers receive a short intensive training in basic Tibetan and Chinese Braille system, as well as basic orientation techniques and daily living skills for the blind.

The "Project for the Blind, Tibet" has been officially recognized by the government of the PR China.

The project for the blind is co-operating with the Tibet Disabled Person's Federation, a sub-organisation of the famous and successful handicapped organisation of the PR China. This organisation was founded in the 80s by Deng Pu Fang, a son of Deng Xiao Ping, who is himself handicapped.

21 Children, 8 Girls and 13 boys, receive education in four separate classes: 2 regular elementary school classes, one music class and a medical massage training class.

A start has been made on the production of Tibetan Braille school materials.

A new building is at present being built. This building will hold a medical massage-training facility, a Braille school materials production facility, three classrooms, toilets, showers, infirmary and some staff-quarters.

Two trainers, both blind, started the training program in traditional Chinese and Tibetan medical massage in combination with the traditional Tibetan herbal bath therapy (Nov. 2000). One of the blind trainers has managed a local medical massage-hospital in Lhasa for the past 10 years. At present 2 trainees are being trained to become future trainers for the centre. In May 2001 a blind physiotherapist from Switzerland, Monique Assal, came over to train the trainers and trainees in the basics of physiotherapy.

In the autumn of 2001 four Tibetans will be trained at the Blista in Germany in special techniques for the blind and in daily living skills aimed to living conditions within the TAR.

In the summer of 2001 six students will be integrated into regular elementary schools. 15 new students will be admitted to the project, which brings the total to 30.