A three day short term training program was conducted in NIT Trichy from 1st March 2019 to 3rd March 2019 titled “Orientation & awareness program on modern assistive devices for blind & low vision students of special schools & special units” in association with NIEPVD (National Institute for Empowerment of Persons with Visual Disabilities) under Ministry of Social Justice and empowerment.
52 participants from various parts of Tamil Nadu came to NIT Trichy to take part in this residential training program. The participants comprised mostly of students (who were studying courses like B.A., B.Ed., M.A., etc.) and a few teachers, a librarian and a railway staff.The workshop educated the visually challenged on the basic knowledge of laptops, smartphones, various associated shortcut keys, basic android accessibility settings, talkback feature and text to speech (TTS) feature. Also, information on how to use apps like ‘Eye D Pro’, ‘Be my eyes’, that was developed to help the visually impaired (VI) to connect with sighted volunteers for visual assistance, was given.The participants were then made aware of the existing legal provisions on access to information & assistive devices under RPD Act, the various assistive features available for the VI in banking services & UPI, ease of usage of e-commerce services such as hiring transport facilities (Ola, Uber, Rapido, etc.), online shopping apps (Flipkart, Amazon, etc.) and food delivery apps (Swiggy, Uber Eats, Zomato, etc.)Some light was thrown upon the availability of online digital libraries such as bookshare, vassippom, sugamiya pusthakaalaya, etc. The workshop was, then, concluded with a brief explanation on the modern technologies used for mobility like smart canes, navigation apps, etc.
The three-day training program consisted of 13 sessions. Trainers, J. Abdul Jaffer, P. Swathy and P. Maruthupandian took 3 sessions each and trainer Karthigeyan. M took 4 sessions. All the trainers are visually challenged and are members of “Jagajothi Voluntary Reader’s Circle for the Visually Impaired, Audio and Braille section, District central library, Tiruchirappalli”.
A large number of student volunteers of Pupil for Pupil Committee (PPC) which is the social outreach arm of the postgraduate students of NITT formed the backbone of organizing the 3-day program along with Mr.J. Abdul Jaffer, co-ordinator of Jagajothi Reader’s Circle. The activities from NIEPVD were coordinated by Mr G. Tagore, Research Officer, NIEPVD, Regional Centre, Chennai). About 25 volunteers from Pupil for Pupil Committee, NIT Trichy lead by Mr Arvind, a 2nd-year M.Tech student came forward to help in the accommodation, transport and dining for the 52 visually impaired participants. The whole experience of hosting the participants along with us in the hostel and mess is a completely different feeling of emotional connect, where we get to know their lifestyle and their needs and they get have a “glimpse” of typical students’ life a NITT said, Arvind.
Dr Sheeba, faculty advisor of the recently initiated social council at NITT said that the objective is to integrate and enhance the impact all the social outreach of the Institute. Prof.Bakthavatsalam, who leads the NITT volunteers said that this is the 4th year in a row that NITT has organized training program for students with special needs - while the earlier three editions were on computer training, this one focused on assistive devices including various common apps and special apps. The tremendous training and inner growth for our student
volunteers is really an unexpected by-product of this workshop said Prof Bakthavatsalam.
Mr Tagore, Research Officer, NIEPVD said, Trichy has become a role model in extending assistance to students with special needs and lauded the NITT students for creating more than 1000 audiobooks which
are in the repository of Trichy district library and emulating this other district library are also dedicating a separate section for visually impaired persons.
Addressing the participants, Prof Mini Shaji Thomas, Director, NIT-T said that the explosion of digital assistive aids have truly opened the third eye and it matters little in terms of competency and confidence levels and that visually impaired are as good as any sighted person. She also insisted that students from Institutes of
higher learning should work on projects which are directly beneficial to society.
No comments:
Post a Comment