Golden Eye Chef
No life without food, as they say, everyone around us, have to eat, to survive and to activate energies, for the rest of the work. Not only human beings but all animals also need food, but difference is only human brain, and human nature we need not only food but also, tasty food, and weather to fulfill our needs or to entertain, others we need to know how to cook better, safer and healthier food. Home made food is pretty important, but only if we know how to cook better and make the best of available resources so to put all available resources together in a way that we get the taste rather add some different flavor to the life, we need to learn cooking or else we will have to suffer all our life’s being dependent on others, or, on the junk food which is never considered to be the best for our health, everyone of us like to be loved or wanted in the family or in friends, and its often seen the person who is good at preparing nice food, is well respected in or outside the family. For blind, it’s always a special effort needed, to prove their commitment not only to live a happy life but also to be able to make others in the family happy and satisfied specially parents and in-laws.
Background of Blind people in India
Like India is developing slowly and gradually in all the fronts on one hand, in a similar way, the condition of the Blind population in the country is improving. It will take more efforts to equipped the blind with the different tools like, skills, to make them independent, self confident, to live life respectfully etc. In the present times, the options for the blind community is very less, so we have to open more doors of opportunity, to stabilise life’s professionally, personally and socially. Today we will focus on one of the very important skill that should be inculcated in Blind.
The Problem Area; Cooking with Blindness.
Food for any specie is important for the survival, the habits, ways of cooking, likings and disliking differs from people to people area and region. It is far easier for our sighted counter parts to learn cooking, but it is very important for the Blind to acquire and polish this skill, to lead independent life. Cooking is an art and science, if excepted as a challenge in a positive way, then an individual can achieve it easily, but if, taken in a negative way, or just doing it for the sake of doing it, without any interest, then it’s very difficult for the individual to achieve.
Cooking, from the word go, more then Blind Boy a blind girl has to face struggles, this skill in itself has a, a wrong notion, a mindset of the society which has to be changed towards Differently Abled. The hardships are faced from within the family, this stigma of blind are not in a position to cook independently, is wrong, because of this fear, it becomes nearly impossible for a blind girl to learn and stand on her own feet, a lot of convincing is required, where the facilities are concerned those are also very limited. On the first place, it looks like an unfulfilled dream, but once if we make up our minds to learn cooking, gradually the confidence increase’s of the particular Blind girl and her family. Here I cite my personal example, I to am a blind girl, like any other girl, I wanted to learn cooking and it is my passion, to cook different variety, for my family and friends, but first time when I picked up this topic for discussion at the table, it was totally denied, and many unexpected questions, fear’s in my Father’s mind popped up, so I had to leave this at that time, but I didn’t lose my heart, tried once again my luck after a gap, had to satisfy him by giving answer’s to all the questions asked, had to convince , him hard for this impossible task, although my confidence wasn’t at it’s best, but I was a lot excited to learn, and add this skill to my personality. So it was decided that we will appoint a professional teacher to get this job done, then that day came, when it was the first day of my class, I started learning the techniques, to my surprise, how the time passed, and today I’m a confident blind girl after learning cooking, can handle it by myself successfully.
Solution for the Problem
We propose to do something that has never been thought of before. We intend to organise a cooking contest that will see 32 visually challenged people display their culinary skills and compete for the ‘Golden Eye Chef’ award. Our aim is to bring about a change in the mindsets of people who consider visually challenged people, especially visually challenged women a burden, incapable of taking care of themselves and their families. Antardrishti has already done significant work on changing peoples’ perception about visually challenged women’s’ education and employment. This event would be a step forward towards changing perceptions regarding disability as well as gender discrimination.