Vision-Aid is proud to announce some new ventures as the year 2018 comes to a close. 

In 2017, Vision-Aid introduced Spoken English as one of the key programs in our model. We quickly realized that while many organizations teach spoken English, the materials and methods rely heavily on visual cues which do not work for the visually impaired students. So we set out to design a custom training program in spoken English for the visually impaired that can reach visually impaired students in all settings rural and urban.

The Boston Accessibility Conference was held on last Saturday October 27th at the Fidelity Offices in downtown Boston, MA. Vision-Aid co-sponsored the conference and hosted a panel "Making MOOCs more accessible to the visually impaired" and an information session on "The Vision-Aid Model”. Vision-Aid sincerely thanks our corporate sponsors Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare for their financial support which made this event possible. We are working on making the videos available soon. Please stay tuned!

The Vision-Aid team was honored and delighted to present a memento, as a token of our deep appreciation and affection for Dr. Chuck, a legendary Coursera educator from the University of Michigan who is visiting India currently. Ms. Jayanthi, Program Coordinator for Vision-Aid’s programming course had a delightful meeting with Dr. Chuck, and expressed sincere thanks to him on behalf of all our visually impaired students who learn programming from his highly accessible, universally popular course “Programing for Everyone” taught via Coureera, which is rated by Class Central to be one of the top 20 MOOCs in the world!

Vision-Aid is organizing a Partner Training Program at Vizag. Trainers from Vision-Aid programs from different parts of India, Agra, Madurai, Berhampur, Hyderabad, are attending these workshops. The workshop is an intensive one-week workshop that will cover subjects that are geared towards students with visual impairment.

Vision-Aid volunteers Sulochana Devadas and Sonal Patel teamed up for several months to design an entry level programming course for our visually impaired students that could help address the needs of our youngest students (typical age is 14 - 18). After an initial online-only rollout, which was successfully run for 6 months with these   students, the course has taken its next steps – for the first time being taught in a blind school setting in India at Nethra Vidyalaya near Hyderabad. 

In July this year, Vision-Aid entered into a partnership with Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, to establish a National Resource Center (NRC) for the visually impaired at Aravind’s main campus in Madurai.

In 2017, Vision-Aid entered into a partnership with Sankara Netralaya (SN), in Chennai India to establish a National Resource Center for the Visually Impaired. During the first phase of this project, Vision-Aid has been working closely with the Low Vision Clinic at SN to help bring affordable technology-based devices to its poorest segment of visually impaired patients. 

On Tuesday, August 7th, Vision-Aid was delighted to host a very special event at the Lexington Community Center - a meet-and-greet event with one of our star students Bhavya Shah. Bhavya is 16 years old and lost his vision at a young age due to a retinal condition which could not be treated.

LEXINGTON, MA–Vision-Aid, a Lexington, MA-based non-profit organization with a mission to rehabilitate the visually impaired people in India, announced that it has entered into a partnership with Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, to establish a National Resource Center for the visually impaired at Aravind Eye Hospital.