One such inspired personality was Helen Keller(1880- 1968). Blinded and deafened at 19 months old by a severe fever, Helen could not even speak because she could not hear. But Helen grew up to be a world famous author and public speaker.

Extremely intelligent and remarkably sensitive, little Helen understood she was different from others and became a rude and disobedient child. So at the age of seven, Helen got a private tutor, Ms. Anne Sullivan, who herself had been blind for some times. For almost fifty years from thence, Anne remained a constant companion for Helen.

Anne was an excellent tutor, and soon Helen evolved into a well mannered young lady, who took interest in various subject, pursued exciting hobbies like sailing and tobogganing, and mastered the skill of Tadoma - reading people’s lips by pressing fingertips against them and feeling the movements and vibration.

In 1888 Anne too Helen to the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Boston, and in 1894 they went to the Wright- Humason School for the Deaf in New York. Helen graduating with honours from Radcliffe College in 1904. While she was still at college she wrote 'The Story of My Life'. This was an immediate success and earned her enough money to buy her own house.

She became a suffragette and a socialist, demanding equal rights for women and better pay for working class people. She also helped set up the American Foundation for the Blind in order to provide better services to people with impaired vision.

She was invited abroad and received many honours from foreign universities and monarchs. In 1932 she became a vice- president of the Royal National Institute for the Blind in the United Kingdom.