25 blind kids take sensory forest tour

A request of a 16-year-old to experience the forest along with her friends — all visually impaired — could well help India get its first visually-impaired friendly national park. Tulsa Maravi and her friends at the Ananya Manav Seva Sai Samiti, Jabalpur, a hostel and school for the visually impaired, recently visited the Kanha Tiger Reserve on a field trip on January 29 and 30.

While the experience has converted the students into wildlife conservation ambassadors, forest officials, encouraged by the response, have begun the process to make the park friendly for visitors with special needs.

Here's how it happened

Tulsa, from a village in the buffer zone of Kanha Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh, is known as the life of her village. Blind by birth, nothing deters her enthusiasm in making friends, including senior forest department officials.

In November, the teenager invited Surendra Khare, Assistant Director, KTR, to Jabalpur for a talk at her institute on the Kanha forest. And here, she also made a request: a field trip to Kanha. "It stunned me for a moment. I was in a dilemma as to how we could manage a forest safari for these special children, most of whom had lost complete vision. But I could not turn down such an innocent request. After reaching Kanha, I spoke to our field director Sanjay Shukla, who encouraged me to make it possible. We reached out to an NGO, Last Wilderness Foundation (LWF), and set to work to host 25 students on January 29 and 30," he said.

Vidya Venkatesh, Director, LWF said it was a challenging task, but discussions with the faculty paved the way. "We sent all the relevant material on Kanha to the institute, and with help of the school faculty, students converted it into braille so that they had some information on the forest."
A special nature trail was chalked out that would offer opportunities for the students to identify trees and flowers by sense of touch and smell, and birds by their songs," she said.

All their efforts paid off, as the students loved every moment of it. "On Saturday, we first visited the Nature Interpretation Centre. Here we heard recorded calls of wild animals and so many birds, and each animal was described in such a way that we could imagine how they would look. During the nature trail in the evening, we walked in the forest and learned about the different trees, and how to identify them by feeling their barks and leaves," said Tulsa.

The jungle safari on Sunday was the highlight of their field trip. "We were taken around in an open vehicle. We could actually feel the forest as it had a different smell. The guides would describe the scenery, and the birds and animals spotted along the way," said 25-year-old Rashmi Patel, who is the oldest student at the centre.

While the students discovered the forests, forest officials and office bearers of LWF confessed that this one proved to be a very emotional journey for them.

"Seeing these children so delighted at being in the forest and trying to understand wildlife was very emotional. The reaction of the students when they touched an elephant belonging to the forest department topped it all. They were shouting and laughing, some even cried, as they touched an elephant for first time," Venkatesh said.

Encouraged with the response, Kanha Field Director Sanjay Shukla said, "We'll be converting all the brochures and information material on Kanha, even display boards to braille. We also plan to add interactive displays to engage the visually impaired, and those with special needs so even they can experience wildlife."