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World Pulse Member Receives Prestigious Holman Prize

Tiffany Brar, a member and vocal contributor to Channel grantee partner World Pulse’s online digital community, received the prestigious Holman Prize in 2020.  Brar is the first Indian to receive the award.

LightHouse for the Blind launched the Holman Prize in 2017 to support the emerging adventurousness and can-do spirit of blind and low vision people worldwide. Created specifically for legally blind individuals with a penchant for exploration of all types, the Prize provides financial backing – up to $25,000 – for three individuals to explore the world and push their limits.

Brar’s Holman ambition, ‘Reaching the Unreached,’ is encapsulated in a YouTube pitch. Brar aims to expand services for the blind into rural and tribal south India. Her goal is to train more than 300 blind people across four states: Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Karnataka. She hopes to help the teenagers enroll in school and adults participate in either residential training centers for the blind or help them find jobs. Tiffany and a team of special educators plan to work closely with local leaders, government workers, and translators to coordinate training programs for blind youth between the ages of 13 and 35.

Born in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, Brar learned to speak five Indian languages as a child. She received schooling in both Great Britain and India. She completed a degree in English Literature and later received a Bachelor of Education in Special Education, Visual Impairment from Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda University.