Remarkable
People in History
Sabriye
TenberkenT
Born with a degenerative retinal disease, Tenberken was blind
by 12. In her early years, she was able to make out faces, colors,
landscapes, but her vision was highly impaired, and as a result
her schoolteachers approached her with what she felt was a patronizing
deference that set her apart. Her classmates spurned and taunted
her. Determined to fit in, Tenberken denied her blindness to
herself and worked overtime to hide it.
Sabriye
Tenberken was 26, blond and beautiful, sensitive, intelligent.and
blind. Alone, she set off to help the blind of Tibet, (on horseback,
no less!) to found a school where blind children could learn
to read braille, speak three languages, take care of themselves,
teach each other, and put a joyous new spin on the idea of the
blind leading the blind.
Defying everyone's advice, armed only with her rudimentary knowledge
of Chinese and Tibetan, Sabriye set out to do something about
the appalling condition of the Tibetan blind, who she learned
had been abandoned by society and left to die. Traveling on
horseback throughout the country, she sought them out, devised
a braille alphabet in Tibetan, equipped her charges with canes
for the first time and set up a school for the blind. Her efforts
were crowned with such success that hundreds of young blind
Tibetans, instilled with a newfound pride and education, have
now become self-supporting.
Sitting
in the bright offices of Braille
Without Borders, now in its seventh year, Tenberken leans
forward and says, "Not accepting that I was blind was miserable.
. I was constantly compensating and pretending." She pauses
to think and with visible emotion adds, "Not until I accepted
my blindness did I begin to live."
Tenberken enrolled at a boarding school for the blind, where
among academic subjects the students were taught horseback riding,
swimming, white-water rafting, braille, and, above all, self-reliance.
"Suddenly, I was one among many," she tells me. "I had friends.
I was equal and happy. . I thought, 'Okay. I may be ugly and
blind, but I have a brain. I can do things.'"
Tenberken majored in central Asian studies at the University
of Bonn, the only blind student out of 30,000. There, several
professors tried to dissuade her from studying the difficult
Tibetan language. There were no Tibetan texts available in braille.
Using the system of rhythmic spelling Tibetans employ to memorize
their complex language, Tenberken created her own method of
translating the Tibetan language into braille. She compiled
a Tibetan-German/German-Tibetan dictionary, and eventually,
Tenberken helped to devise a software system that enabled her
to transpose entire Tibetan texts into formally printed braille,
a feat no one before had ever accomplished. "I developed this
system for my own use," she says, "but when I realized that
blind people in Tibet could also benefit from it, I got the
idea to bring it here and start a school."
Rejected by several development organizations, who saw her blindness
as too great a liability, Tenberken resolved to make the project
happen on her own. In 1997, at the age of 26, much to the dismay
of everyone but her immediate family, she traveled alone to
China, took an intensive course in Chinese, then proceeded to
Tibet, where she learned that more than 30,000 of Tibet's 2.6
million people are blind-about twice the global rate. While
poor diet and unhygienic conditions are factors, Tibet's main
cause of blindness is its high elevation; at this altitude the
intensity of the sun's ultraviolet rays causes damage to the
unprotected eye.
Tenberken discovered a deep prejudice against the blind in Tibet,
where blindness is considered punishment for misdeeds perpetrated
in a past life. For centuries Tibet's blind have been shunned,
vilified, and generally treated as subhuman. When Tenberken
first arrived, she found not a single institution or organization
geared to provide assistance for the region's blind-clearly
a result of this deep-seated fear and opprobrium.
Tenberken decided to travel through remote areas of the countryside,
visiting rural villages, spreading the word about her braille
system, assessing the situation of blind children there.
What she found appalled her: isolated, disrespected, sometimes
beaten, abandoned, or turned out in the streets to beg, almost
all were illiterate and uneducated. When villagers saw Tenberken
walking, riding a horse, they refused at first to believe she
was blind. Tenberken persuaded them that though blind, their
children, too, could ride horses, read, and write. One astounded
father told her, "The prospect of your school is like a dream
for us."
At
the moment, there are 37 students-ranging in age from 3 to 19-in
residence at the school, as well as six trained teachers and
five staff members, but new students arrive regularly. I ask
Tenberken how the school survives without charging tuition or
boarding fees. At the mention of finances, she smiles ruefully.
"It costs about $2,000 per month to run the project. It's not
a lot, but by the end of this year we may find we're out of
funds."
Tenberken, who used $20,000 of her own money to start the school,
spends a great deal of time applying for grants, making speeches,
and traveling to raise funds from private individuals. Though
the project has gained international renown and the school receives
close to 5,000 curious visitors a year, donations are often
not forthcoming. Tenberken drops her cane on the ground by her
feet, tucks her hands between her knees, lifts her face to the
sky. "The main reason people don't give us money is that we
don't raise funds with pity." She believes that presenting her
students as pitiable simply furthers the prejudice against them.
"We've learned that you'll get funding if people feel sorry
for you, but the perception of your capabilities will never
change."
People tried to put limits on me, but limits always show opportunities.
I persisted because I believed it was possible."
