Rehabilitation for The Visually Impaired in Taiwan

Report of rehabilitation program

Recording of Digital Talking Books

From January to March, we finished recording books including What Can I Learn if I Read History,100 Stories of Life, Discovery of Human Body,etc.  These books are going
to be produced in DAISY format.  Also, we
were making thirteen books (those are recorded from Oct. to Dec.) into DAISY
format.  All books are very good for
visually impaired people, and we will give these books to the visually impaired
as soon as possible.  In the future, we
will continue recruiting volunteers and recording daisy digital talking books.

Computer Training Courses

With your support, we have many kinds of computer courses.  We have hold Facebook
group class, and sound editing group class. 
Other computer courses include introduction of screen reader (NVDA), basic
computer information, sound editing software (such as Goldwave), blogs and surfing
the internet, E-mail, operation of windows, Microsoft Office and Youtube. 

We also provide psychological counseling services. 
Our social workers will talk to the visually impaired one by one and
know their needs.  Also we hire
professional counselors to help the visually impaired.  In Sundays, we hold a seminar called “life
experience sharing.”  We invited many visually
impaired people to share their valuable life experiences.  Topics of sharing are abundant, and range
from traveling to learning English.

Maintain the Taiwan DAISY Library
continually. 

This Online library is constructed in 2010,and visually impaired people could join to be a membership from that time.  This library has 230 members and 2,200 DAISY
books till now.  The model of Taiwan DAISY
library mainly referred to Bookshare.org in USA.  From 2007, Bookshare.org acquired a subsidy
about 32 million dollars from the Special Section of Education Department of
U.S.A. in five years.  With enormous
fund, Bookshare.org had more than 120,000 books and 150,000 members in
2011.  TDTB tried to build a DAISY
library from the successful experience of Bookshare.org.  TDTB not only provides DAISY books but also
provides computer training courses, which make this library accessible for
visually impaired people. 

Recording of Digital Talking Books

From October to December, we finished recording thirteen books including8016  These thirteen books are good for visually impaired people, and we will give these books to the visually impaired as soon as possible.  In the future, we will continue recruiting volunteers and recording daisy digital
talking books.

Computer Training Courses

With your support, we have accomplished over 448 hours of computer training course in 2012, and there were over 47 visually impaired people learning the courses.  Our computer courses include introduction of screen reader (NVDA), basic computer information, sound editing software (such as goldwave), blogs and surfing the internet, E-mail, Facebook, operation of windows, Microsoft Office and Youtube.

We also provide psychological counseling services.  Our social workers will talk to the visually impaired one by one and know their needs.  Also we hired professional counselors to help the visually impaired.  In 2012, we offered 120 people counseled by psychological counselors.

Test of internet accessibility and forums in universities

In order to improve the accessibility of internet, we hold ten forums in 10 universities in Taiwan.  We talked about the necessity of internet accessibility, and showed the students how to test the accessibility of a website.  After 10 forums, we invited those students to test 60 websites in Taiwan.  In the end, there were 256 defects of internet
accessibility found among those websites.  We ranked five excellent students and gave them prize money.

We are greatly thankful to all donors, and we will continue our work and do our best to help the visually impaired in Taiwan!

Links:

• homepage of TDTB