In a welcome step towards empowering blind and low vision youth,
Lion’s Club, one of the world’s largest NGOs, has come
forward to provide tactile educational materials to some blind schools in
Mumbai.
The material has been developed by Access For ALL, which is
committed to using innovative methods to foster inclusion in art, education
and infrastructure. Be it finance, carpentry, or kitchen skills, the
materials are aimed at the “betterment of visually impaired people,” as
Founder, Siddhant Shah puts it.
“This is being organized by Lions Club of Sion in partnership with the
Lions Club of Mandvi East in Mumbai”, adds Shah.” The key three issues
covered here are banking basics, carpentry and kitchen skills. The kits
contain a designed tactile object and Braille book on the same. Like, a
tactile Braille rendition of cheques and credit cards so blind students can
identify the process of writing a cheque and know where to sign them. The age
group we are targeting is six years and above.”
Eleven pieces have been designed in total and to begin with they
have been supplied to the Victoria Memorial School for the
Blind and the Smt Kamla Mehta School for The Blind,
both in Mumbai. Other than the topics mentioned above, there are kits about
India maps, plant and animal life, monuments, to name a few.
The topics were decided upon based on discussions with the schools and
Lion’s Club members after which a team from Access For ALL looked at
available facilities in the schools to ensure the kits filled the gaps. In
doing this, Lion’s Club hopes to encourage other organizations to look at
creative ways to promote inclusion.
With Lion’s Club, or for that matter any funding organization, the
problem is that projects become monotonous. With this approach, we thought
we could support a social enterprise like Access for ALL as well as provide
facilities to blind schools. We see ourselves as catalysts and hope that
other organizations and individuals become aware and start thinking about
this. – Lion Alka Rajesh Gandhi, Regional Chairperson
Of special note is a tactile educational kit relating to menstrual
hygiene for blind girls. “I found that the Mumbai schools had no
information on this topic and in my experience from blind schools in another
city, many of them have male professors, which can be inhibiting for
girls.”
From tips to maintain menstrual hygiene to using pads according to blood
flow, the kit has critical information. Information that many blind girls
tend to miss out on as Ankita Singh, a low vision MA student
at Delhi University and captain of the Delhi blind women’s
cricket team reminds us.
“Our mothers don’t talk to us, so the result is that we have vague
information relating to periods and that can be rather frightening. Getting
this information out to girls at the right stage is critical and I hope all
blind schools consider this seriously.”
The kit was developed based on inputs from teachers as well as a
gynaecologist to ensure important information is included. Hopefully, this
will encourage more schools and organizations to look at adopting such
approaches, which offer necessary life skills no child should miss out on.
Source: https://newzhook.com/story/21012
