Father Carlo Velardo, S.D.B. has spent the past 30 years making it  easier for the blind to experience healthy and productive lives in Thailand. As director of the Nonthaburi Skills Development Center for the Blind, Bangkok, his facility is dedicated to not only providing friendship and care to his students, but also giving them the training they need to make a living in a city that can be a challenge even if you aren’t disabled.

Fr. Velardo arrived in Thailand in 1978 from his native Italy just four months after ordination. “A Belgian priest and I were the first Salesians in Thailand.  We didn’t know much about what we were doing then, so we just winged it.” 

His Center  today is the result of careful patient planning and a willingness to defend the rights of the marginalized. “When I started, the blind were shunned and the common perception was that they could only do two things -- sell lottery tickets or be telephone operators. But we started teaching our students carpentry and woodwork and were able to get some of them jobs. But it was difficult.”  The realities of insurance, malpractice and on the job injuries gave many factory owners cold feet.

Braille charts are among the many tools used by the school to train blind massage therapists.
“The ironic thing is, we showed them statistics that proved that the blind have far less instances of injuries than those who are sighted!” He continued, with a smile, “When you can see, you get careless and work too fast -- a pretty girl walks by and you end up cutting off your finger. But a blind person has much less to distract him. They work more diligently and concentrate harder.  But given the resistance to what we were trying to do, we rethought our program. We came up with the idea of training our students to be massage therapists. We managed to find two excellent instructors, and the program began in 1983.”

Fr. Velardo’s program was recently approved by the Ministry of Public Health to license graduates of his Center as Doctors of Thai Traditional Massage, an acknowledgement of the high quality of training being offered. Most graduates find work right away and continue to hone their skills for many years. The Center, located in the northern part of Bangkok, in the Nonthaburi’s Pakkred district, sees about 150 customers each day. 

A tour of the training facility gives an insight into the thoroughness of the course. All the traditional learning tools are there -- mannequins, nerve and muscle charts, maps of the body labeled with organ names and acupuncture points . But all the names are in Braille. The charts, maps and mannequins are all covered in different textures of sandpaper, cloth, rope and wood to help the students navigate by touch alone.

The two-year course accepts 40 first year students each year, and has its own registered trademark. Their logo is a sure sign that the therapists have been properly trained. The campus includes a gymnasium where students can get exercise and improve their self confidence.

“It’s quite daunting for a blind person to play baseball or run a race, but once they get good at it, they think ‘Well, what else can I do?’” said Velardo. One of those things is judo, which is also taught at the school. Velardo tells why this course began.

“Blind people in Bangkok -- usually lottery vendors -- were constantly getting robbed.  All the police would say was ‘Can you describe the thief?’ Eventually, a group got angry enough that they burned down a police station. I came up with the idea of teaching the students self-defense, and managed to get the police to supply us with instructors.”

“It was rough at first, but it got better quickly. I got some newspapers to cover the story, and pretty soon the assaults all but stopped! Some students have even won national judo competitions,” said Fr. Velardo, smiling.

Velardo comes across as a genuine person, a priest who is doing his duty not for fortune or glory, but to make a genuine difference. So after all these years of training the blind, what makes him continue?  “Satisfaction at seeing my students join society in a productive way," he said. “That’s all I need.”