Mahadev Dayanand Sawant
Mahadev Dayanand Sawant, the Purple Ambassador for Person with Low Vision at Purple Fest 2023, was awarded with the Best Disabled Employee Award in 2018 by the Social Welfare Department of Goa. A year before he received the Best Teacher Award 2017 by National Association for the Blind, Goa State Branch. The Rotary Club of MidTown Panaji’s Best Community Vocational Service Award also came his way in 2015.
Working as a computer teacher at National Association for the Blind (NAB) Goa for a decade Mahadev is presently working as LDC at Goa Medical College (GMC). A post-graduate in sociology, Mahadev holds a diploma in Computer Applications for the visually impaired with expertise in JAWS and NVDA. The musically inclined Mahadev has completed Madhyma in Tabla at Kala Academy. Hailing from remote Kopardem in Valpoi-Sattari, Mahadev he is a council member at NAB Goa and also appointed on the State Advisory Board on Disability, Goa apart from being an advisory member of State Commissioner for Persons with Disability, Goa.
Mahadev’s disability is low vision since birth. He recalls the difficult phases in his childhood, “Only my parents knew that as a kid, I am not able to see clearly. As I grew up I began mixing with friends but was sceptical about my abilities. I remained in a confused state as to how much more a sighted person sees compared to me. In school I always sat on the first bench and yet was unable to read from the blackboard. Due to low vision I faced a lot of problems. When teachers asked me to read a lesson, I was unable to read. But, thankfully, my friends used to prompt the text. I used to listen to them and pretend to read from the book as if I could see the text, while the reality was, I could not. While completing the notebooks I faced problems on cursive writing. But I loved languages – Marathi, Hindi and English."
Mahadev experienced how his visual impairment could have stopped his higher education. Thanks to two persons who acted as his guiding angels – Ashok Menon and Rozendo Mendosa, for leading him to NAB Goa and motivated him to continue learning, Mahadev has seen many students with complete blindness and having low vision competing with other sighted students at NAB.
Mahadev started learning computer screen reader software with Taha Haaziq and got the opportunity to teach computers to other students at NAB GOA while he completed his higher studies. He did post-graduation, answered the tabla exam and did other certificate courses in computers related to visual impairment. After completing Teachers Training (TOT) at Enable India, and learning a lot from the late Leena Prabhu through her 40-years of teaching experience, he remains thankful to the council members including Usha Kamat for working selflessly to empower visually impaired persons.
Having faced difficulties himself, Mahadev began working to empower the PwDs in association with NAB Goa State Branch. “Because like me, there are many visually impaired persons who are still fumbling and stumbling in the dark and NAB Goa is making tremendous efforts to show them the right path. Education is the only tool to overcome disability. It brings out the hidden qualities within you,” shares Mahadev who is engaged in social responsibilities. In association with NAB Goa and the State Commission for Persons with Disabilities, he conducts sanitisation, counselling and awareness workshops. He spends time reading, listening to music, writing skits and playing tabla, ghumat and drum.
“Out of the 21 disabilities, visual impairment stops the person from seeing the beauty of the physical world. Some can see only partially. But most remain in the dark if they or their family members decline to accept the disability. Some of the sighted persons try to understand the problems of the visually impaired persons whereas others just ignore,” says Mahadev appealing to direct the visually impaired to NAB Goa, as it would transform their lives just like his.
“Technology has brought a tremendous change in the life of persons with disabilities. It’s God's gift to us. With the help of technology and other sighted persons who are working for the empowerment of visually impaired persons, we can also see and feel the world around us. I don’t know how the world looks at me, but I am aware that those who are watching me closely would see in me a ray of hope for other visually impaired persons and this makes me more cautious about shouldering my given responsibility with utmost care.”
Stating that the world is a beautiful creation of God and that the sighted persons can see the beauty of it through their naked eyes whereas a visually impaired person like him can see the beauty only through his inner eye, Mahadev reminds us, “God is a supreme power
