“Blindness is not the cause feared by people with blindness, they fear of poverty associated with it” – Chakshumathi
Chakshumathi is Kerala’s first Assistive Technology Centre for the Blind. We mainly focus on 3
areas of assistance to the people with blindness and print disability on a complete nonprofit
mode. Our services are:
1. Promoting reading and education through assistive technology.
2. Promoting Science and quality education for the children with special needs
3. Rehabilitation and prevention of blindness.
Chakshumathi originally started as the State’s resource centre for DAISY assistive publishing to produce assistive books and promote reading among people with blindness and print disabilities. Being an executive member of DAISY Forum of India (DFI), Chakshumathi was a catalyst in amending India’s copyright law in 2012 in favour of reproducing any published books in assistive form that can help a person with blindness and print disability can read by them without seeing by themselves without the assistance of any. India was followed by United States of America in changing their copyright law and now WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organisation) made it as a law world over changing the whole way how the world was publishing and how the copyright law protected publishers and assist a person with print disability to read any book he wish.
Chakshumathi not only produce DAISY / Epub3 books, but also train and set-up Daisy production centers with the Universities of the State and covert their libraries accessible, SCERT, State’s text book production authority and other NGO’s who work in the cause of print disability.
Currently Chakshumathi is working along with 80 other members of DFI to launch 1 Million Reader Movement to inspire main line publishers to publish all their publications also in accessible format. Currently India has less than 1% of it’s print publications in accessible format.
Another major area Chakshumathi is working in is developing a Malayalam Screen Reading software. As a first phase, we are very happy to say that with the assistance of DFI we already perfected E-speak a multilingual screen reader to speak Malayalam perfect in machine voice. With the support of Bazaj Foundation now Hear2Read Human Voice Malayalam synthesizer is launched for Windows and Android . Chakshumathi is also the testing partner for NVDA (Non Visual Desktop Access) free Screen Reading software.
Chakshumtahi being the State nodal agency for the BookShare Online library, we are proud to say that with over 850,000 titles reading famine among print disabled is almost resolved. Currently we are producing a reading promotion App to encourage young generation of the community to read and grow. The App named Andre Tutto Beno will be launched by September 2020 with many features and incentives.
"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." This quote from Frederick Douglas a legendary US senator is very relevant today among the visually impaired community around the world and especially in India. Around the world, the last quarter of 1900’s saw assistive technology has made a big leap opening new horizon for the people with visual impairment to lead a normal life and work. But world over educationists are unaware of the assistive technology which can replace the short comings of sight for a visually impaired.
In the mid 1900’s when the human rights acts for people with special needs were developed to make the life easier for people who were affected with some sort of physical and mental disability was a common thought among educationists aroused that it will be hard for people with visual impairment also to learn science and mathematics, so to skip those important subjects for them in the schools. Making life easier in the early ages can make life tougher at later years. 98% of global unemployment among the visually impaired community is the cause of these light minded mistakes in providing quality education for the children with visual impairments. We need to build cognitively strong children, so that when their going gets tougher, they get going. If we look at the history, there were great visionaries with strong mathematical ability lived in the community with visual impairment. Even before the advent of assistive technology in the last part of 1900’s great innovators like Bernard Morin, Alfred P. Maneki , blind adventurist and mathematics teacher Erik Weihenmayer who climbed all top peaks in all continents and current sensational computer scientist Dr. T.V.Raman of Google are the inspiration and proof that it was a wrong believe that blind can’t study mathematics and science.
Chakshumathi Assistive Technology Centre started in 2011 to promote assistive technology among people with visual impairment, with in an year come to a conclusion that "It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men" while we were trying humbly to empower unemployed blind men and women in assistive technology and bring them to the world of reading and working. We deeply looked in to the root cause of inert among this men and women. It was the education and unwanted patronage to make their studies and examinations easier and thus making them unemployable and fully dependent. Chakshumathi Charitable Trust is now a leading think tank in the world to promote and research accessible science education among children with visual impairment, blindness and deaf blindness to build a bright and independent life for these exceptionally brilliant and ambitious children.
All the developed countries in the world is now following and modifying their rules as per Disability Legislation Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (SENDA or Part IV of the Disability Discrimination Act) by the United States of America in their Higher Education in September 2002 and promoting Science Education among students with visual impairment. Under this act blind and visually impaired students are largely covered to ensure and support them effectively in learning science. In India Central Board of Education and most of the State Education Boards are well aware of the fact that for people with visual disability has a lot of job opportunities in all arenas of job sector especially in the promising IT sector which is now the country’s largest employment provider. To make it a reality, National policy ensures a 3% job reservation to people with disability in private and government.
But the current population who is ready to take up a job is not fit to support any technology involved jobs or any job that require a little bit of assistive technology and writing or reporting skills. Just because of their qualifications in general subjects such as languages, history, politics and social sciences, that to obtain with the support of an assisted examination policy, a large group of blind graduates are unemployable. 98% is the current unemployment among visually impaired in India.
In 2012, Chakshumathi hosted our first Eyes Free Science Summer Camp for high school students with visual impairment for the first time in India and ever since every year the camp is seen with more and more enthusiastic students with excellent grades in Science and Mathematics subjects.
Our last 8 years of our effort in popularizing accessible STEM education has produced over half a dozen Computer Science graduates and except the fresh graduates who are waiting for the degree certificates all of the seniors are working in highly paid jobs starting from Google to many MNCs.
Students who studied science at the higher secondary schools have a wide range of choices in taking up worthwhile degree programmes to become professionals. Blind students who take-up computer science can excel well than their sighted peers. Most of the legendary programmers in the world are surprisingly blind. Besides programming jobs, there is a wide arena of employment in software testing, programme designing, Research and developments in various technological labs including space science and chemical industries for the visually impaired. A well secured high paying job is a dream of all. Then why the world prevents it for the visually impaired. The biggest fear of blindness is not blindness; it is the associated poverty due to unemployment and low paying jobs.
Chakshumathi’s rehabilitation Centre running in cooperation with all leading eye hospitals in Kerala is a byword for the practicing ophthalmologists. They refer patients with possible visual loss to us for rehabilitating them into an eyes free environment. Our services include:
1.Counseling to patient and family (sometimes to their employers)
2.Accessing the kind of blindness and planning a road map for their future.
3.Teaching assistive technology and mobility to make them independent.
4.Assisting the patient to obtain all special privileges from the Government.
5.Case to case technology modification for studies and work at patient’s schools, colleges or work places.
6.Assistance to continuing treatments at the Mahatma Eye Research Foundation (Puthalath Eye Hospital, Kozhikode) and Regional Institute of Ophthalmology on a free/low cost basis.
7.Working on State’s first database on people with loss of visual.
8.Frequent sight saving, prevention and eye protection campaigns to prevent blindness.
9.Glaucoma awareness programs
10.Guidance to elderly population who has disability in reading prints to use assistive technology for their reading.
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