Woman launches campaign for smart sticks for visually impaired people

ISTANBUL

A woman in Istanbul has gathered around at least 1,000 smart walking sticks for visually impaired people after a social media campaign she launched on the International Day of Persons with Disabilities on Dec. 3 last year, daily Milliyet has reported.

“I want visually impaired people to be able to navigate around social life with these sticks. This is a call for freedom,” said Zülal Tannur, a 19-year-old woman who is visually impaired herself.

She said her first experience with a WeWalk smart walking stick was “life-changing” as it warns users when they are in danger of hitting somewhere.

“You can also upload a coordinate of a place onto the smart stick,” she added.

She said the stick had given her self-confidence, which is what motivated her to launch a donation campaign on change.org to get a lot of visually impaired people like her to use it.

Within a short time, around 210,000 people contributed to the campaign to gather around 1,000 smart sticks.

A smart stick is worth 2,000 Turkish Liras ($285).