A Tour of the Institute for the Blind at Burj Hammoud

In Beirut there are two schools for those deprived of sight: the first belongs to the Evangelical Society, the second to the Swiss Union. There was also a charitable medical clinic for the blind, directed by Miss Bustani, which has since ceased its work; and there is a shelter for blind beggars and vagrants. The subject of this radio report of ours, however, is the Home for the Blind belonging to the Swiss Union, which stands in the Burj Hammoud district, on the Dora side.

This institution consists of a group of large buildings surrounded by a wall; to be exact, it is made up of six clusters of buildings containing one hundred rooms, divided into various sections: for the administration, the director's residence, quarters for the women and girls, quarters for the men and boys, the school, and the workshops.

As for the practical effect of this great institution, we can feel it in every one of our houses: the brooms, the brushes, the baskets, the chairs, and other straw wares are products of the Home for the Blind at Burj Hammoud.

We were received by the director of this institution, Mr. Karl Meyer of Switzerland, a man in the fourth decade of his life, abounding in energy, broad in understanding, an expert in the education of the blind. The blind boys address him as "Father," and the blind girls address his wife as "Mother." We held a session in his office in which the conversation turned on this important institution. We said to him:

Q: When was this institute of yours founded?

A: The institute was founded in 1923 by a Swiss man named Theodor Weber, the delegate of the Swiss Society of Friends of the Blind. At first the institute was located at Ghazir; in 1928 I was appointed its director, so I came to Lebanon and set about erecting buildings of its own in Beirut — the ones you see today.

Q: And what are the sections of this institute of yours?

A: Our institute is divided into seven sections, namely:

First — a kindergarten and an elementary school for children deprived of sight.

Second — an elementary school for those deprived of hearing.

Third — a library in the Braille method for the blind, containing nine hundred books in Arabic, Armenian, English, French, and German.

Fourth — the music school, where the blind pupils learn to play certain musical instruments and to sing solo and in chorus.

Fifth — a medical clinic made up of three rooms.

Sixth — workshops for straw wares of every kind.

Seventh — a store located in Souq al-Qazzaz in town, which handles the sale of our wares wholesale and retail. It also handles the sale of raw materials to the homes for the blind in Aleppo, Jerusalem, and Ramallah — this with the aim of assistance, not of making profits.

Q: We have heard that you publish a magazine. What is it?

A: Yes, we have a magazine for the blind in raised letters, which appears once every two months; its subscribers are the pupils of this institute, scattered through Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Turkey, Greece, and France.

Q: And how many pupils have you?

A: The boarding pupils number 53 — 11 males and 42 women. The day pupils number 44 — ten females and twenty-two males. The staff and workers number fourteen. My wife and I serve as director and directress of the institute. The grand total thus comes to 96 persons.

Q: And do all of them study or work at the institute?

A: No; only sixty of them work in the various industrial sections while they study. The rest study only.

Q: And how are the residents of the institute distributed by nationality?

A: Eighty-four Lebanese, seven Syrians, two Iraqis, one Greek, and two Swiss.

Q: How much does one blind person cost you a year?

A: A blind boarder costs us about 800 Lebanese lira a year.

Q: May we know something of the institute's budget?

A: The institute's annual budget comes to about forty-five thousand Lebanese lira, the greater part of which comes from Switzerland, while 13 percent comes from benefactors in Lebanon.

Q: Do you receive any government aid?

A: Most regrettably, we receive nothing.

Q: Would you permit us to make a tour of the sections of the institute?

A: With great pleasure — of course — please, come along.

Q: What do they make here?

A: Here they make brushes. We produce 150,000 brushes a year.

Q: And what do they make here?

A: Here they bore the wood for the brushes. We make eight million holes in wood every year.

Q: And what is this large storeroom?

A: This is a storeroom for straw of every kind, which we import from India, China, Mexico, and Africa.

Q: And what do they make here?

A: They make baskets and straw chairs.

Q: And what is this room?

A: It is the institute's library. Here the blind read books of religion, science, and literature. Look — this is a relief map of Lebanon, and these are relief drawings of animals, plants, scales, and instruments. And this is a relief drawing by which the blind man learns how the blood circulates in the human body.

Q: And what is this machine?

A: It is a typewriter, on which the blind man types with one hand while with the other he feels the material he is copying from.

Q: That is to say, the machine makes raised dots that form a given text?

A: Yes, exactly so.

Q: And what is the Braille method of writing for the blind?

A: It is only six dots serving as the basis for all the letters of the alphabet: one dot is "A," two dots are "B," and so on. This method has become uniform for all the blind of the world; the single dot, for instance, indicates the letter "A" in all languages, and so with the rest of the letters.

Q: And why was it given the name "Braille"?

A: The method takes its name from Louis Braille, born in Paris in 1809, the son of a saddle-maker. It happened once that he was playing with an awl and a piece of leather; the awl leaped from his hand and struck his eye, putting it out. Soon he lost the second eye and became blind. And it was this awl, which had cost him his sight, that inspired him to use it in devising the alphabet known by its six raised dots — indeed, they give the blind man sixty-three kinds of signs. The Western blind man writes with them from right to left, and when he turns the sheet over he reads it from left to right; the Arab blind man writes from left to right and then reads from right to left.

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We returned to the office of the director of the institute so that he might give me his views on the blind, our brothers in humanity. He said: "We must look upon the blind as human creatures who need to be treated as one seeing man treats his seeing brother.

"The prevailing opinion is that the blind man is a burden on society, a deficient element among created beings. This opinion is wrong from its very foundation. You have seen for yourself the handiwork of the blind and their material and intellectual production. And there is no need for me to remind you that the world holds a great number of blind men of genius; I will mention to you, by way of example, Dr. Taha Hussein Pasha, and Dr. Aref al-Aref in Lebanon.

"And the blind educator of the blind, Mrs. Helen Keller, spoke truly when she said: 'The problem lies not in blindness, but in the conduct of the seeing toward the blind.'

"The blind man needs not merely sympathy, but treatment of brotherhood and equality.

"My advice to the seeing is to attend to cleanliness in the family and the school, for cleanliness is the strongest weapon against blindness. Attend to the cleanliness of your children's hands and faces, for blindness comes most often from trachoma, inflammation of the eye, smallpox, and the venereal diseases."

With that our visit to the Institute for the Blind at Burj Hammoud came to an end. We left this great workshop, where the blind stand equal with the seeing, asking ourselves: would it not behoove the government to establish in the country an institute for those deprived of sight in Lebanon, and to profit from the experience of Mr. Karl Meyer and his wife?

For the country is in urgent need of an institute for the blind embracing all communities and elements. And that can come about only through serious work under the supervision of the state.

* Broadcast on Radio Lebanon