27th December – Feeling the Pulse of the Yatra Part II

Story of Paul and Sabriye – “Dream Big”

A small German girl lost her eyesight at the age of 12. She waited for darkness to come but it never did. Instead her life became more colourful. “Blindness made me curious, I tried finding new ways to do things” she shared. As a growing child, she too had dreams… to travel the world and learn new languages. But society wouldn’t let her chase her dreams so she ventured out alone. After Red Cross disagreed to take her to Tibet, she left for the country alone.

Sabriye along with her partner Paul, opened the first school for the blind in Tibet in 1997. But before Paul joined in, Sabriye had roamed Tibet and witnessed the most appalling social customs; of keeping blind children locked in dark rooms, of tying them up to furniture so they can’t move out of the home! As Sabriye spoke to Tibetans, she found out that locals thought of blindness as a curse to the family. So as to save the family name, they hid the children inside the cellars and rooms. That’s when Sabriye decided to open a school for blind children in Tibet. Not only to make them self reliant but also to give them a sense of dignity. I can still hear her voice echoing in the brick hall in which we were sitting, “I am blind, SO WHAT?!” She wanted to give them a feeling of pride and confidence. To make them believe that they are not a burden to the society and their family, they are as capable as anyone else is.

To give her dream shape, she directly approached the Chinese government office requesting for some money. And guess what? Her broken Chinese and belief in her dream got her the money! Sabriye met Paul in Tibet. She smiled and said, “He is my DREAM partner.” Paul was backpacker in Tibet when he met Sabriye and heard of her dream. He quit his job to join her. Sabriye shared, “He is the only person I met who didn’t laugh on my dream.” Together they taught and trained blind children in Tibet. Today, after 12 years of setting up the school, they have managed to change the attitude of Tibetans towards blind children. But more than that, they have changed the attitude of the blind towards themselves. Sabriye shared a story of a small boy who was being mocked by a few teens on the road. The kid turned to them and said, “I can read and write, can you?” – This shut the teens up! Paul & Sabriye left the school some years back to migrate to India. “Success is there when we are not needed anymore,” Sabriye declared. They have left it to be run by blind themselves.

In India, Paul and Sabriye run the International Institute of Social Entrepreneurs. They train students in skilled based production; like weaving, cheese making, carpentry etc to make them self reliant and independent. They select students from all over the world, ranging from places like war zones, under developed countries, the discriminated blacks and the blind. The selection criterion is simple. They should have the zeal in them to make the wrong into right. “It’s a dream factory,” in Paul’s words.

The audience was captivated. The power, energy and force in Sabriye’s voice held us. She was proud of herself and her dreams. She said, “You don’t need vision but A VISION.” Looking at her I felt, nothing is impossible to achieve, no dream is too big to come true. What you need is just the determination and belief in yourself and your dream. Everything else can be taken care of.