Disability Rights Ukraine Project #57723

Specialized push-button telephone for blind users

by Kharkiv rehabilitation centre 'Pravo vibora'

Project Report | Jan 24, 2026
New ideas for project development

By Valentyna Butenko | Projct Leader

Dear friends,

Our project lives on the “GlobalGiving” platform. We are grateful for the opportunity to showcase our work to a large audience!

We continue to work steadily on its development. Currently, our focus is on creating a program that will allow blind Ukrainian iPhone users to use speech synthesizers with a high-quality voice in their native language.

According to official data, there are more than 65,000–70,000 blind people in Ukraine; however, unofficial statistics suggest that this number may be three times higher. The number of people with visual impairments in Ukraine is increasing, particularly due to the war.

Modern, active blind people want to and are able to use phones and computers to solve everyday tasks at work, in education, and at home. For many, a mobile phone has long ceased to be just a phone. Much more often, they use the Internet, messengers, email communication, and financial applications.

Blind people perceive information from phones and computers through screen readers and speech synthesizers.

In order to study, work, and remain independent, they need high-quality voices in their native language.

For the Ukrainian language, the Apple ecosystem still lacks a high-quality, flexible, and user-friendly voice that is comfortable for everyday work and correctly reads mixed-language texts. Because of this, users are forced to switch the interface to other languages, which creates difficulties in education, work, and daily life.

Some people avoid using iPhone and Mac devices due to the lack of a convenient voice.

We are creating an application that provides a Ukrainian voice based on RHVoice for macOS and iOS.

RHVoice is an open-source speech synthesizer that is already well known and familiar to many blind users.

It offers clear pronunciation, good intelligibility, and flexible voice customization.

Our task is to adapt it to modern Apple systems so that every user can obtain a high-quality voice and simple tools for text-to-speech.

Our team has conducted a series of technical experiments, compiled preliminary RHVoice libraries for macOS and iOS, and obtained the first results of the voice functioning on these platforms.

Our team understands how to build the solution architecture and what steps are required to create a stable product.

Our project will help thousands of people with visual impairments more easily master technology, study, and work.

A high-quality Ukrainian voice in a popular ecosystem will make the digital environment clearer, more convenient, and more accessible for everyone who relies on speech synthesis every day.

If a person with a visual impairment is competent in their chosen field and confident in themselves, there will be no obstacles to building a successful career and finding employment.

Over the next 9 months, provided that we receive funding, we plan to:

— create an iOS application with RHVoice support and the ability to voice text from other applications;

— develop tools for macOS so that users can use RHVoice in desktop applications and via the command line;

— open-source the code and prepare documentation for developers;

— test the solution with at least 1,000 users together with partners from public organizations.

To implement our objectives, we require 35,000 euros.

The funds are needed for:

— purchase of equipment (for developers and testers) – 20%;

— payment for cloud services and communication services – 20%;

— remuneration for voice developers – 35%;

— remuneration for testers – 10%;

— administrative expenses – 15%.

We sincerely hope for your support,

The team of the “Right to Choose” Center

Permalink

Oct 3, 2025
Our work is important for blind people

By VALENTYNA BUTENKO | Lider projekt

Dear friends!

Our project lives on the Global Given platform. We are grateful to you for this! Perhaps this will draw people's attention to such issues.

How does a blind person live in the modern world. How has their life changed with the advent of modern technologies. How do blind people feel in Ukraine, where there is a war now? How do Ukrainian blind refugees live abroad without knowing the language and in an unfamiliar space? What helps them cope with difficulties.

BlindPhone is one of the modern solutions and a godsend for blind users, fans of push-button smartphones in difficult situations.

It helps blind people to stay in touch with others through messengers, to conduct social networks and to use all the features of the Internet.

The “BlindPhone” project began in August 2021. Blind people needed push-button phones that could make sounds, because modern operating systems installed on push-button phones or smartphones are not at all adapted to the needs of blind users, and old phone models began to exhaust their life resources. And we managed to solve this issue.

Our team managed to combine the growth of the use of push-button phones and the modern multifunctionality of current smartphones.

The uniqueness of this project also lies in the fact that all our specialists are also blind. And so at the beginning of 2023 we realized our dream by adapting two push-button touch smartphones to the Android system: AGM M7 and AGM M7 PRO. These two smartphones are shockproof and waterproof. Another feature of these two smartphones is that they have a built-in powerful speaker that will allow you to listen to your favorite music or any other information as if on a music column.

Now we will consider in more detail the list of applications that will be fully accessible from the buttons in our adapted smartphones:

1. We are working on a new Screen reader for the AGM M7 PRO push-button smartphone, for faster navigation in the interface after adaptation for blind users.

2. We are working on adapted software for the Conquest F3 push-button smartphone.

Who is interested in such push-button smartphones?

The push-button smartphones adapted by us are convenient for people who, in addition to vision loss, have various limb injuries and for the elderly who are used to using push-button phones.

Our partner online store with which we cooperate provides phones on preferential terms.

We emphasize that we set a low price for adapted smartphones, as we understand the realities that are happening in Ukraine in connection with the full-scale invasion of Russia into Ukraine.

We are not going to stop there and will try to surprise our Customers with new developments, adapting more and more new push-button smartphones.

With inspiration,

the “BlindPhone” team.

Permalink

Jun 5, 2025
We use modern technologies

By Mykola Lagotsky | Lider projekt

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