Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
Lattakia, SANA -Despite losing his sight, 37-year-old Eyad Khawandah rejected to surrender to feelings of frustration and despair and found in his favorite profession “bamboo industry” a way out of a very difficult psychological and social situation that accompanied him during the first period to adapt with his new lifestyle.
Surrounded by several delicately designed bamboo pieces in different shapes and sizes, the young man sits in the bamboo room at the building of “Blind Care Association” in Lattakia, accompanied by his friends who talk to him while he moves his fingers weaving the curved straw around the bamboo sticks to make a variety of gift boxes, baskets of laundry , fruits, trash, and tissue boxes and others .
“I have been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, which would be stable at the beginning of age and it may develop or retreat, but I had an eye injury that caused internal bleeding and total loss of vision after completing my studies in the industrial vocational secondary,” Khawandah told SANA.
He added that it was not easy for him, “ as I found it very difficult to adapt the new case and I felt a lot of pain, but presence of my mother in my life gave me the strength to overcome my ordeal.”
Khawandah started learning industry of bamboo through a training project in the Association, and he was able to learn the basics of craft, improve his skills and acquire what is necessary to master it, such as accuracy, speed and patience.
He added that feels joy when fulfilling each piece of the bamboo, stressing that the bamboo industry helped him to get rid of the state of depression and impotence and gave him a sense of strength, self-confidence and ability to adapt to various circumstances.
Hybah/Mazen
