Qatar tries to change attitudes, show support for blind people

From The NY Times:

DOHA, Qatar -- There are a lot of reasons she might be bitter. She went blind in fifth grade, just like that. One day she had vision, the next, sudden retinal detachment. And then a life of darkness.

She was whisked off to London for surgery, which failed three times. She came home to a country that offered virtually no services for the blind.

But Hayat Khalil Hassan Nazar Heji may be the most grateful citizen of Qatar. She is a blind woman from a conservative Muslim country whose government paid for her to go to the United States, learn English, earn a Ph.D. and then return home to serve as director of Al Noor Institute for the Visually Impaired. “If you trust God and have a strong will, you can overcome any challenge,” she said. “There is nothing too difficult in life.”

Dr. Heji is a small 34-year-old woman, with tender hands, a gentle smile and clouded eyes that reveal nothing of the determination inside. Doctors never were able to tell her exactly what prompted her blindness, but she understood at an early age that she would never get her sight back.

So while she could not see, she dedicated her life to molding how she, and then other blind people, are seen. “People are different, and they have different ideas, and you can shape the way they come to think of you,” she said. “At the institute we try to instill this, in addition to academic abilities, in our students.”

There are 430 children at the Noor Institute from preschool through sixth grade. Older students, if capable, are mainstreamed into the regular school system. The school is in a walled courtyard that feels weathered and hidden off the main road in a neighborhood under construction.

But inside, it’s happy. The halls rattle with the sound of canes tapping around, and laughter. Lots of laughter. On a recent visit, an 11-year-old eased his way into the corner of the hall and then stood silently for a minute as though lost. He was hiding, and when his buddy walked by, he sprang forward, “Surprise, Khalid!” he shouted as they walked off, laughing, to class.

But the school is also a reminder of the special challenges faced in Qatar. It is still the custom in Qatar for young people to marry very close relatives, including first cousins. The two main causes of blindness in Qatar are premature birth and genetic disorders, passed along within families. The result, Dr. Heji said, is that many families have multiple blind children. “There are lots of families like that here,” she said.

In one sixth-grade class, Rashid was learning to make a straight line pushing pegs into a peg board. His teacher, Manar Fattouh, said that Rashid had five brothers and two sisters, all blind. The girl next to him, Wadha, was pushing putty through a mold. She had a sister in the school who was also blind.

Dr. Heji did not want to discuss the issue in depth, partly out of respect for it as a local custom but also, it appeared, because she was clearly aware that first cousins’ marrying is seen as taboo in most parts of the world outside of Africa and the Middle East. She said that her own parents were close relatives, though it was never determined if that was a factor in her blindness.

“There is an issue of heritage, but awareness is being raised in Qatar,” Dr. Heji said. “Everyone is talking about the negative effect of heritage.”

THERE are other special challenges to being blind in Doha. In practical terms, there are very few places to walk because the city is built to be navigated by cars. Culturally, Dr. Heji said, people will not allow dogs in their homes, so there is no opportunity for Seeing Eye dogs.

Still, Dr. Heji said she learned at an early age that problems almost always have solutions. So she has her teachers take the students to the mall, or the airport, or even a convention hall, so they can learn to have control over their own space.

“We instill independence,” she said.

Dr. Heji, who is single, is the middle child of nine. She said that as a child she developed a cataract in one eye but that she could see until 1985, when she hit the fifth grade. Then, she said, the blindness just happened. Her father, Khalil Hassan Nazar, refused to lock her up at home, as many parents here do. He wanted her to continue her education, so he would read her books and lessons into a cassette recorder for her to use as study aids. In high school, she focused on literature and graduated 10th in her class.

Her father then hired a special teacher to train her in Braille, and in 1994 she became a student at Qatar University, where she majored in Arabic. Four years later she graduated and went on to teach at Noor and to give “lessons for parents of the students with blindness so they would be able to help their children to deal with homework and life.”

By most measures, that itself would have been a success story.

But Dr. Heji said she was inspired by Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser al-Missned, a wife of the emir of Qatar, who encouraged her to continue with her studies. They met, she said, at her college graduation.

WITH the blessing and the checkbook of the oil-and-gas-rich state, she flew to the United States in November 2000 to study English at the University of Pennsylvania. She was frightened and sad — but determined.

“When you live abroad, you are physically there, but your heart is somewhere else,” she said. “Being away was not easy, but the way I thought about it was that I wanted to use this experience and education to serve my country and give back part of what I owe.”

In 2001 she entered graduate school at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. She earned a master’s degree in education two years later, and in 2007 graduated with a doctorate in educational leadership.

Speaking to Dr. Heji can be like trying to slow down a high-speed train. She is focused, driven and always on message. There are no visual cues to interrupt her, to suggest it is time to pause, and it can be difficult to get a word in as she promotes her school, her cause.

Noor Institute, she said, developed a special tool for helping teach Braille, a plastic box with buttons to push to make different letters and numbers. The school developed a special device for teaching math concepts, which she said are especially difficult for blind children to grasp. The school is also developing a vocational program, again with the idea of promoting independence.

Dr. Heji does not hold herself up as a role model, and though obviously proud of her accomplishments, she insists that her success and independence are a tribute to the support of others, not to any special drive.

“Because of the support I received during my childhood, and the support I still receive today from my family and my country, I want to help other people in the same way people have always helped me,” she wrote in a personal essay about her life. “I have always been grateful to my family, my schools, my teachers, my instructors, and my country.”