Visually impaired people prove that they can see. Sarah Eissa explains After finishing photography, Cairo University's visually impaired students delved into the world of painting. Last month, a workshop, Al-Azf Bel Al-Alwan (Playing with Colours), dedicated to visually impaired students, was held at Taha Hussein public library. Adel Badr, assistant professor of sculpture at the Faculty of Special Education in Cairo University, and a lecturer with six years experience in teaching blind students in the School of Archaeological Awareness for the visually impaired in the Egyptian Museum, was behind the idea. A press release issued by the World Health Organisation (WHO) marking World Sight Day in 2011 estimated that over 900,000 people in Egypt are visually impaired. Abanoub Roshdi, 21, a visually impaired student in the Faculty of Art History, joined the workshop without hesitating because drawing was his hobby since he was a child. Badr said many students were not too keen on the drawing idea because they are blind or could not draw in the first place. "It's wrong to say I can't draw. It's just that every person has his own ability in drawing," Badr argues. To overcome this fear, one month before the workshop started the students were introduced to plastic arts in general. "After we draw we feel we have expressed talent and creativity we didn't know we had," says Islam Abul-Fotouh, 29, a visually impaired student in the Faculty of Mass Communication. Badr said because of the special nature of the students he gave them inexpensive and readily found tools suitable for use after the workshop ends. He added that the visually impaired draw with their fingers by sensing colour and drawing paper. "Like in art education, we construct a building, one brick after another until it's finished, then coloured." They start to choose the subjects then draw with one colour -- which is difficult even for people who can see. "Since the first day the results were amazing. Some outsiders did not believe the students drew this. To document it we photographed them using video and still pictures," Badr said. "Students were very happy, felt they had achieved something and that what they were doing is important." How can they draw if they cannot see? Badr said some students could see before losing their vision so they can remember. They are also given models to touch and feel what the subject looks like. "To draw faces they first started touching their own face to know its details and draw it with one colour. We then used two colours together and taught them theoretically the different kinds of colours like cold and warm." The workshop lasted one week, every day with a different subject. Sometimes students were given home assignments such as using different tools in drawing like an old hair brush or a toy. "They were given the space to be creative," Badr stated. "I drew the sea as a natural scene with its beauty, and part of the desert to encompass the different components of Egyptian nature," says Karim Saber, 22, a student in the Faculty of Dar Al-Ulum. "If it's akin to reality without imagination there will be no creativity and nothing new," he says. "Maybe the drawing does not exist in reality but it still looks beautiful." Saber cited drawings where they put glue on the drawing sheet, then colours, then start moving a comb over it. "I don't need sight in something like this," he said. Another type is when drawing a circle they can stamp it instead with a cup. In the workshop assistants place the colours students ask for in plates in special order so they can distinguish between them. He added that using a plate makes it easier to colour with their fingers, like in finger painting, or a brush. Due to problems with his eyesight Mohamed Ismail, 31, entered university when he was 25, graduating in 2011 from the Faculty of Art History. Ismail joined the workshop because it had advertisement designs. According to Badr, during the exhibition a professor commented that one drawing was inspired by artist Salah Taher's paintings "even though the student who drew it never saw Taher's paintings."
