Forbes India, Feb 2020
When the blind lead the blind, to success
BY Naini Thaker, Forbes India Staff
Image: Nishal Lama for Forbes India
Visually impaired entrepreneurs are helping make science subjects more accessible to students like themselves
It was a moment of pride for Vidhya Y when, in 2017, the 24-year-old became the first visually impaired student to graduate from the institute with a master’s degree in Digital Society. But her happiness was short-lived.
Vision Empower (VE) is a Not-for-Profit enterprise which empowers children with visual impairment through inclusive education. VE is incubated at IIIT Bangalore.
The BUZZ
News & Events
Forbes India, Feb 2020: When the blind lead the blind, to success
Visually impaired entrepreneurs are helping make science subjects more accessible to students like themselves.
Naini Thaker, Forbes India Staff reports
Pragya January 2020
A two day Teachers’ training workshop Pragya’2020 was organized by Vision Empower, in collaboration with Mathruchhaya- Canara Bank Relief &...
Read more
An Empowering Odyssey
“It’s Magic!”: Imagination, Creativity and a Whole lot of Learning
The children had an opportunity to gain exposure to topics not typically taught in schools for the visually impaired. It was 2 days of absolute fun with learning.
Read more
Vidhya’s Journey with VE: Inspired by the Cause
With her teaching experience for sighted children, Vidhya took up the challenge of designing accessible curriculum for Grades 1 and 2 for children with visual impairment.
Read more
WHY we do what we do
The Reality
One fourth of the world’s blind population lives in India. In fact, 30% of India’s blind lose their eyesight before the age of 20 and many become blind before the age of five. Given their special needs, children with visual impairment need special resources to have the same opportunities in education as their sighted counterparts. Of the 68% of blind students who go to school, 11.5% eventually drop out (Source : "Population Enumeration Data (Final Population) in Census of India. Derived from here).
While like every other child, a child with visual impairment has the right to education, the current Indian education system and a stark lack of resources leads to majority of blind students being denied the opportunity to learn Science and Math after class 7. Therefore they cannot pursue STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers. In the state of Karnataka, of the 45 schools for the blind only one offers these subjects in high school.
A child with visual impairment is debilitated by a ‘wall’ on her road to STEM education.
WHAT we do
Vision Empower seeks to shift the present statistic, making STEM accessible to students with visual impairment.
Learning Resources
VE, in collaboration with its partners, is creating STEM content for students in the form of Braille books, audio books, tactile diagrams and other accessible content for each topic at all grade levels.
Anubhav : Experiential STEM Learning Programme
Anubhav is VE's flagship experiential STEM learning programme with the aim to develop the scientific temperament among children.
Pragya : Teacher Training Programme
VE teacher training workshops equip school teachers, both with visual impairements and sighted, with the methodologies that aim to make STEM lessons interesting and effective.
Ananda : Hand-holding Programme for Students
VE volunteers work with students to reinforce STEM learning through after-school engagements.
Assistive Technologies
VE has initiated several research projects to design and develop assistive technology to enable students with visual impairment to learn STEM concepts on par with their sighted peers.
WHO We Are
The Empowering Ecosystem
Team VE, along with our partners, collaborate to create accessible content, instruction kits and technologies to assist the teaching and learning of STEM for children with visual impairment.
Team
People at the heart of VE
Know More
VIDHYA: Visually impaired since birth, Vidhya overcame immense challenges to become the first blind student to study math at the higher secondary level in Karnataka and the first blind student to pursue a computer science major in her university. She is the motivation behind Vision Empower and aims to break down barriers in STEM education for the blind.
SUPRIYA: an IT professional with over two decades of experience is the powerhouse behind Vision Empower. Her experience in volunteering as a teacher to children with visual impairments since 2015 provided an impetus to conceive Vision Empower.
AMIT PRAKASH: is an Associate Professor at IIIT Bangalore. He actively engages with the notion of inclusion in designing digital technologies and democratizing social systems for his research and consulting endeavours.
Our valuable core team of ADITYA, RAJ, SHILPA, mentors and student interns who help build / steer the vision with more ambitious projects, connects.
Know MoreOur Partners
Big dreams, great ambitions need superstars to complete the ecosystem. These are our star partners and collaborators.
Vividha Trust
Matru Chaya Trust
Mitra Jyothi Trust
XRCVC
Tactile Center, Assistech Labs, IIT Delhi
IIITB
Touchétech Labs
VE Supporters
IIITB
WIPRO
Microsoft
Let's Tag On
Elektrobit
Volunteers
Make a difference to your life. We have such heartwarming stories to share!
A journey with VE is enriching and rewarding...
Take Maruthu, who enjoys learning/playing along with our 5th grade Prajwal, every saturday at SRMAB, or Nalina who helped with Maria or Biswesh who was a participant in the hackathon.
If you are looking for a meaningful way to contribute to society and wish to join us in this endeavour, we would be more than happy to hear from you! There are myriads of ways you could help us. Please write to supriya@visionempowertrust.org
YOU & VE
Volunteer with Us
Students with visual impairment do better in smaller groups and with individual attention. Volunteers like you can play a crucial role in filling the gap and making STEM accessible to students. If you would like to know more about our volunteering opportunities drop us a line at meghna@visionempowertrust.org. We’ll be happy to talk to you.
Partner
with Vision Empower
Contribute
Volunteer
Spread
the word
