People of Value

Utah: Sachin Pavithran

USU graduate student Sachin Pavithran received the Kenneth Jernigan Scholarship for outstanding blind students from the National Federation of the Blind.

Pavithran is the first person in Utah to ever receive this $12,000 scholarship. To be eligible for the scholarship, applicants must be legally blind and must be pursuing or planning to pursue a full–time, post secondary course of study in a degree program at a U.S. institution in the 2008 scholastic year.

Pavithran is an international student born in India. He moved to the U.S. from the United Arab Emirates in 1995. At 17, his main motivation for moving to the U.S. was education.

When asked why he chose USU, he jokingly said, “I got on the wrong flight.”

One scholarship is available for a person employed full time while attending school part time, and the person must participate in the entire NFB national convention and in all scheduled scholarship program activities. Pavithran fulfilled all of these requirements and is planning to attend law school.

The NFB is a nationwide organization with more than 50,000 members, and it is the largest organization for the blind in the U.S. The members range from elementary school–age children, to college students, to professionals in various fields. The adult members include those of various professions, including lawyers, doctors, and White House and NASA staff.

In addition to the money he received from the NFB, Pavithran also won a KNFB reader. This device was designed in collaboration with the NFB and has a value of more than $2,000. It is a basic personal digital assistant attached to a camera. It allow the user to take pictures of any print document and reads it to them.

Pavithran’s involvement in the Utah chapter of the NFB began about three and a half years ago after he attended the state conference.

He said, “I went through a phase where I’d been doing it on my own. I don’t to be a part of an organization. I had a lot of things that would have helped if I had joined the organization a lot earlier.”

He named mentoring as the most important resource the organization offers. It has many individuals who have succeeded and can tell others how to do it also.

“I like their philosophy of not to let blindness stop you from accomplishing anything that you want to do,” Pavithran said. “They look at blindness as a nuisance rather than a disability.”

Source: Wilson, Liz. Blind Student Receives Scholarship. The Utah Statesman. 26 September 2007.