Every year December 3rd is observed as the International Day of people with disability. On this occasion, this year, the Vision-Aid team was delighted to announce the launch of a new state-of-the art Vision-Aid Digital Resource Center in the city of Agra, India.
During the annual event in July 2017, Boston-based philanthropists Vandana and Vivek Sharma, generously pledged support to launch a new Vision-Aid Resource Center in their home-town of Agra. This set in motion a series of planning and implementation activities, which culminated, in just over 4 months, with the formal commissioning of the center. The new center is located on the premises of the Louis Braille Blind School in Agra.
The Vision-Aid Digital Resource Center and Online Academy was formally commissioned by Vision-Aid President, Syed Ali Rizvi, who travelled to Agra to commemorate this happy milestone.
The new Vision-Aid center will bring to the residents of the Louis Braille School, a range of capabilities, which will open up the digital world to them. The center includes new computers, software and network infrastructure, along with distance learning capabilities which will allow the students in the blind school to access a variety of training programs offered by Vision-Aid. While today’s launch marks a significant milestone, it is just the start of an exciting journey for the Vision-Aid team and the visually impaired students at Agra.
Over the next several months, Vision-Aid will train the teachers at the Louis Braille Blind School, working jointly with them to offer a range of education. It will include basic computer education, advanced computer courses, Spoken English courses and an orientation to MOOC’s like edX and Coursera, which will open up a wide range of digital learning opportunities for these students.
It should be noted that until now, the students at this school neither had access to computers or the internet, and this new resource center will be a transformative experience for most of them as they begin to realize the power of digital learning and the internet. The resource center will also offer innovative, low cost assistive technology solutions, and offer opportunities to the students at Louis Braille Blind school to connect with Vision-Aid’s network of mentors and job-placement programs such as our hackathons.
The Vision-Aid team is very grateful to its sponsors Vivek and Vandana Sharma for enabling the creation of a new Vision-Aid center. The centre will help in bringing valuable programs to an under-served community of visually impaired students, enabling them to live with independence and dignity. The Vision-Aid team also thankful to their technology partners in India, Gyanmantra of New Delhi for their support in “powering” the project with their technical expertise and implementation support.
