The Dark-Haired Young Woman Widad Baroudi

The physically handicapped in Lebanon — the blind, the deaf, and the mute — were a heavy burden on their families and on society. Everyone regarded them with a negative look that went no further than pity... standing with folded hands, powerless to render any positive service to these wretches, deprived of the blessing of enjoying the sense of sight, or of hearing and speech... They lived in isolation, in perpetual abasement — a neglected heap in the corners of houses... Until, last spring, we saw them bring to life, on the stage of Beirut College for Women, a complete artistic performance of singing, acting, and playing — and the eyes of the audience brimmed with tears, moved by these living scenes. We said then: "Behind this blessed step there must stand a great heart and a giving, tender soul..." And our searching and inquiring led us to the sweet dark-haired Miss Widad Baroudi!

She loved the blind and the deaf, and enlisted to teach them...

I sat with her the better part of an hour, asking and she answering, drawing her toward the hiding places of the secret that drove a young woman like her onto the paths of this thorny, arduous work.

— "It is one of the dreams of my earliest childhood," Widad answered with her radiant smile. "In the days when I was a pupil in the school of Miss Aminah Khoury Makdisi, that noble lady used to invite the blind to visit the school, and would speak to us often about them and about the necessity of helping them, and spur us on to collect donations for them. My small heart would be wrung with grief for them, and I used to wish I could one day sacrifice for their sake more than my modest pocket money..."

— And this feeling grew in her breast at Ahliah National College, nourished at the hands of its principal, Mrs. Wadad Cortas, who is no less ardent in the cause of the blind...

At Beirut College for Women: This natural inclination of hers was nourished further at Beirut College for Women, where she investigated these intractable social problems and wrote her thesis on "The Problem of Blindness in Lebanon." That study helped her to "knowledge"... thence to "the need to act"... thence to "love" of these wretched creatures — and love is the foundation of every good work...

The Rotary Club scholarship: It was a truly happy moment when word reached Widad that the "Rotary Club" had decided to grant her a scholarship to specialize for two years in the teaching of the blind and the deaf...

And her heart beat with joy, for her dream had begun to come true...

Her studies in Boston, in the United States, proved a chain of useful and delightful experiences — she lived a full year in a boarding school for the blind, ate with them and slept, and during the two summers went to camps in the open air with the deaf-mutes. These memories left countless delicious pictures in her glowing imagination...

Japan's care for the blind: On her way back to Lebanon she stopped in the Far East and visited the schools for the blind in Japan, and was astonished at the surpassing care the physically handicapped receive there, the like of which has not been recorded in any other Eastern country — they have, for example, sixty schools for the blind alone, and no blind or mute person is to be glimpsed in the streets, as is the case in the other Eastern countries...

The Lebanese Society for the Relief of the Blind: She returned to Lebanon driven by an overwhelming eagerness to begin at once applying the practical theories that filled her head — and did not find the institution that should have received her and welcomed her and the benefit of her specialization... For the school for the blind, which the "Lebanese Society for the Relief of the Blind," under the presidency of Dr. Philip Touma, had been laboring to build — that school at al-Warwar was not yet fully equipped...

Lebanon's First Lady behind the project: Widad Baroudi well knew the zeal of the honorary president, Mrs. Zalfa Chamoun, and her fruitful concern for the blind — she had many a time taken part in person in spiritual or poetry readings to entertain them, and contributed effectively to collecting donations to erect their institute and equip it with the most modern equipment... So Widad approached the First Lady of Lebanon, and obtained from her and from the Society a promise that the school for the blind would open at the beginning of this coming October, and that she herself would be charged with the direction of the school...

The first spark: During Widad's interview with Mrs. Chamoun, the First Lady gave her a letter she had received from one of the mothers, asking her help in the matter of her deaf-mute child. The photograph enclosed with it bespoke beauty and intelligence... Widad was seized by the boy's innocent eyes, and did not delay in visiting the mother and talking with her and with her son... And how quickly the little one took his place in her heart... The mother informed her that she had friends whose three children were deaf-mutes like her son, and implored

her to save them... or to help them as far as possible...

Setting to work: Widad answered the mother's appeal, and found with her four little ones — a nucleus for beginning the work — but where was she to shelter this nucleus?

Here appears the name of Ustad Sami Salibi, owner of the Institute of Music and Drawing in Ras Beirut — that humane man who encouraged Widad, opened the doors of his institute to her, and promised to assist her with every means at his disposal... and he kept his promise... He took upon himself to train the blind in singing and to play for them himself, as those who attended the artistic performance at Beirut College for Women saw and heard... all of it for the sake of God, without any recompense...

In speaking of those who encouraged her and took her by the hand, Widad remembers with abundant gratitude Mr. Usama Dimyani... and naturally she does not forget the Dutch expert Mr. Andevik, with whom she will cooperate this coming autumn to train women and men teachers to help her in teaching the deaf-mutes.

At the school for the blind: Widad attaches importance to the Society's promises to open the school for the blind at al-Warwar this coming October. This modern school is a boarding school, and will accept boys and girls whose ages range between five and twenty years. But if circumstances should prove contrary — God forbid — and the school not open, Widad will proceed without delay to rent a house for this purpose. Fundamentally she prefers the service and teaching of the blind; but if no one can be found to teach the deaf-mutes, then the energetic pioneer will enlist herself...

The difference between the blind and the deaf-mutes:
Widad affirms that there is a great difference between the blind person and the deaf-mute — the first is keenly sensitive and more responsive to his surroundings than the second. The deaf-mute does not hear sound, and so he is dull and little responsive, and work with him is more laborious; his instruction is therefore very slow...

The method of teaching the blind: Widad explained to us briefly the method of teaching the blind — it is by training his senses: hearing, taste, and touch, to take the place of sight. For example, the teacher throws something — a book or a pencil — on the floor, and asks him to name "the thing" and to search out its place — or she asks him to identify objects by way of smelling or tasting them. In teaching the blind to read they follow the "Braille" method, with its raised letters, which the blind person feels with his sensitive fingertips — and these books are imported from England and from Jerusalem and Cairo — for there are as yet no presses for raised letters in Lebanon.

The method of teaching the deaf-mute: The teaching of the latter relies on speaking before the mirror, by way of feeling the vibrations of sound with the fingertips on the throat and in the mouth and the nose... The ha, the ayn, and the kaf come out of the throat; the ba, the ta, and the mim from the front of the mouth; the ha with the panting whose vapor they see on the windowpane; and the nun from the nose — and every letter has its own art and its own point of issue, which demands endurance and patience... and love!

The afternoon is set aside for learning handicrafts, as the foundation of a trade they may follow in the future — and what these physically handicapped are most encouraged to take up is carpentry.

The final aim: These unfortunates, Widad affirms in closing, are innocent creatures on whom nature has dealt harshly, depriving them of the blessing of the senses, so that they were flung into the streets and the alleys if they were poor and wretched, or shrank in upon themselves within their own four walls if they were well-off. Our duty — we, the sound of body — toward them, and my aim behind this work, is to help these creatures as far as possible toward normal life and honorable work, and toward taking their rightful place in society, without being a burden on anyone, or an object of anyone's pity... We stand behind their material independence and their dignified living...