By Zahra Rashid <\/p>\n\n\n\n
UNIVERSITY CITY, SHARJAH \u2013 Darkness surrounded her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Poojaraj Maniyeri looked around the room and she couldn\u2019t see a single thing, not even the people standing right next to her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt isn\u2019t scary but more confusing initially,\u201d she said, when asked how she feels about experiencing some of the visually impaired world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This role reversal was organized by the American University of Sharjah Community Services and Outreach program, where visually impaired people from the Emirates Association of the Visually Impaired guided AUS students in a \u201cDark Caf\u00e9\u201d on Feb. 22. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The students were served coffee and snacks and spoke to their guides about how it feels to be in absolute darkness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI went in my first year as well as this year and both times I was shocked. But eventually my eyes got adjusted to it [the darkness],\u201d Maniyeri said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maniyeri said she was amazed with the structure of the caf\u00e9 as it did not let any light in and this enhanced her experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Community Services and Outreach coordinator Amawi ElKhalifa said that, in an ironic way, the dark caf\u00e9 was enlightening. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEach student left having learnt something and it was very subjective. Some were crying, happy, confused or thoughtful,\u201d she highlighted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The dark caf\u00e9 was built by student volunteers from the Community Services and Outreach office. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Zahra Rashid UNIVERSITY CITY, SHARJAH \u2013 Darkness surrounded her. Poojaraj Maniyeri looked around the room and she couldn\u2019t see a single thing, not even the people standing right next to her. \u201cIt isn\u2019t scary but more confusing initially,\u201d she said, when asked how she feels about experiencing some of the visually impaired world. This role […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3128,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[33,35,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-3127","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-campus-news","8":"tag-aus","9":"tag-clubs","10":"tag-community"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3127"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3127\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mcmmediahub.aus.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}