Carrying out the idea of teaching all students without any discrimination by the Founder, Clement C. P, Change, TKU has been enrolling students of the blind since 1968 and has made good progress in so doing for the last 40 years. To celebrate the historical occasion of the 40th birthday of the Camp for Blind People, the Center of Resources for the Blind and Camp for Blind People will hold series of activities from Monday Oct. 20 to Saturday Oct. 25, including experiencing darkness and gratitude concert, etc. The Director of the Center of Resources for the Blind, Huan-chao Keh has expressed, “Through this celebration, we hope that faculties and students will understand more about and care more for the physically challenged students and continue to serve them and promote special education. We hope faculties and students will actively join us.”

On Friday, Oct. 24, there will be activities of experiencing darkness, including “Telling Stories by Touching Pictures,” “Making My Braille Cards,” “Sensing by Touching,” “Watching My Visionary World,” etc. “Telling Stories by Touching Pictures” lets students explain the meanings of the cards with Braille printing while covering their eyes, so students will experience and understand how blind students do their reading. “Making My Braille Card” requires students to type their names out with Braille typewriters, so they will know something about the formation of Braille words while “Sensing by Touching” challenges students to find three different things by touching while their eyes are being banded. The latter makes students distinguish articles by sensing through touching. “Watching My Visionary World” will let students wear various glasses for different degrees of the vision-challenged people in order to see the limits of their visions. Mass Communication major, junior student Jui-ting Guo highly looks forward to the activities, hoping to experience the daily life challenges and hardships of the blind through the activities and care more for these blind friends around us.

The Gratitude Concert will take place at the Carrie Chang Music Hall this Friday (Oct. 24) at 7:00 pm. Vision-challenged History major, sophomore Yuan-liang Su will dance while Chinese majors, senior Jia-da Yang and freshman Yu-fan Yang will sing love songs in double and play the piano. The Flier Band, vision-challenged pianist Zhe-cheng Xu, some vision-challenged street artists and the previous members of the Camp for Blind People are invited to sing choruses and give performances. TKU will present appreciation certificates to organizations that have supported physically challenged students, such as Chunghwa Telecom, Hewlett Packard (HP) Taiwan, etc.

The Camp for Blind People will hold a party for all previous and present members in the Student Activity Center on Saturday Oct. 25 at 10 am. While displaying all the Camp’s achievements, strengthening all members’ friendship, exchanging life experiences, the Camp will also establish a personal information bank to promote services for the physically challenged students.

In addition, TKU will have a “Non-Barrier Test Contest” from this Monday (Oct. 20) to Nov. 30, hoping all faculties and students to find any designs of the campus for the physically challenged, which need improving. If there is any, just take a picture and explain the reason, and send it to elle@batol.net by email, and you will get a present for it. Everyone is welcome to do it! ( ~Dean X. Wang )