The founder of the date – the European Union of the Blind (ECC) – chose a white cane as a symbol of this day, which helps blind people to perform everyday actions familiar to any healthy person: walking the streets, crossing the road, navigating unfamiliar places.
White Cane Day draws attention to the movement and mobility of the visually impaired. In modern cities, for visually impaired people, travel to the place of work or study, a trip to the store and even an ordinary walk can end tragically.
In Russia, the All-Russian Society of the Blind has been protecting the rights and interests of the visually impaired since 1925. Today, the society includes 74 regional organizations, including 800 local organizations and uniting more than 213 thousand visually impaired people living in all regions of the country.