Braille books for 4000 visually challenged kids

Of the 26 percent of blind people who are employed, the majority of them are braille readers. The correlation is clear - braille is an extremely important tool for blind people to become literate, and it is a critical component that supports the educational advancement and increases employment prospects. Indian Association for the Blind (lAB), based in South India is a well-known non-profit organization working to provide education, employment, training and rehabilitation for the visually challenged from rural areas. Late Mr S.M.A.Jinnah, the visually challenged activist and a group of like-minded visually challenged people founded IAB in 1985.

Since its inception, IAB has educated and rehabilitated more than 23700 visually challenged children and youths mainly from rural areas. In a country with the highest incidence of Blindness in the world, IAB has been working for about 33 years in empowering people with visual challenges through education. Your philanthropic interest in making them having their own braille books is deeply appreciable and this gives rise to $7,599 through your generous donations.

Braille is a tactile reading and writing system used by blind and visually impaired people who cannot access print materials. It uses raised or projected dots to represent the letters of the print alphabet. It is a language that is used to represent letters, numbers, punctuation marks and even entire words. The pattern of raised bumps or dots called Braille can be read with the fingers by those who are visually impaired or blind. There is no substitute for the ability to read. For blind people, a braille is an essential tool that aids in the process of becoming literate. Tape recorders and synthesized speech are useful tools, but they are inadequate substitutes for reading and writing. Braille literacy plays the same key role in a blind person's life that print literacy does in a sighted person's. It increases opportunities.

Braille lets blind people to freely express their thoughts on paper without being concerned that other people may read personal things about them. It also lets blind persons read for themselves, label their own belongings, and compensate for things they cannot do because of their disability. Research shows that braille literacy directly correlates with academic achievement and employment. The majority of working-age blind people are unemployed (74 percent) and depend on the support such as disability income benefits. It is estimated that the lost productivity due to blindness and eye diseases is $8.0 billion per year in the United States.

Despite the link between braille literacy and employment, braille literacy rates for school-age blind children have declined from greater than 50 percent (40 years ago) to only 12 percent today. Part of the reason for this decline can be attributed to the mainstreaming of blind students into the public school system, where significantly less time is available for learning braille. Another factor is that many people believed that talking computers would replace the need to learn braille. However, listening alone is not enough. Research shows that braille provides a critical advantage for students to learn grammar, language, math, and science.

Still, there are inadequate funds for production and distribution of Braille Textbooks to our visually Challenged School Students. Currently, we are circulating the only minimum number of copies of a textbook in a classroom. So, we look forward to raising more for this cause. As always, we, along with GlobalGiving, will do our best in reaching out to generous donors across the Globe and will strive to bring happiness on the face of each of our beneficiaries.

Links:

• http://www.theiab.org