Synopsis
As the Peace Center for the Blind faces reduced funding and threat of eviction from its rented building in East Jerusalem, founder Ms. Lydia is on a journey to secure a permanent home and educational facility for the blind women and girls she has dedicated her life to serving. Ms Lydia, a blind Palestinian Christian woman who lost her sight at the age of two, has overcome not only the challenges of visual impairment but also countless other obstacles over the last 80 years living in this conflicted part of the world. Born during the British Mandate for Palestine, she lived through the murder of her father when she was only 5 years old, various wars and military occupations, being forced out of the blind school where she studied and later taught, etc. Although visual impairment is typically considered a crippling disability, Ms. Lydia and the women at the center continue to demonstrate that the limitations of blindness can be overcome. Through this process they also develop the perseverance and resilience necessary to overcome the many other obstacles they are up against. Ms. Lydia has turned this disability into an integral part of her life philosophy: the literal and metaphorical inability to see people’s differences in a very divided part of the world.
