A summer campwith a vision for thevisually-challenged

TNN | Apr 6, 2020, 04:43 IST

Thiruvananthapuram: Chakshumathi, a city-based centre that provide assistive technology and empowerment for the print disabled and visually challenged students, has announced its 8th annual ‘eyes free science’ summer camp. This year, however, the camp will be held online.
Visually-challenged school students from all over the country can register for this camp which would be held from April 16 to 25 in two phases using cloud platforms. BookShare International, Daisy Forum of India (DFI), Raised Line Foundation of IIT Delhi, and Google will support Chakshumathi in this initiative.
“Even if the lockdown ends by April 14, it is best to maintain social distancing and avoid travelling, especially for the visually-challenged because touching and hearing is the way their of communication and we do not want to expose any of our participants to potential threat of infections. This is the prime reason to keep this year’s camp online and I could very well conform that all the participants are tech savvy and much better than their sighted peer when it comes to online platforms,” said Ram Kamal, the camp director.
“With the advent of accessibility in using computers, information technology, data analytics etc., we find that innovations can help visually-challenged to be at par or even above those who are sighted. Giving the right guidance and creating avenues for grabbing the technology environment and opportunities are what educators and support organizations can do in this respect. There is an increased demand for trained visually-impaired youth especially in areas such as research, data science, software development and quality testing areas. ‘Why not, science for the visually challenged’ is the slogan we raised way back in 2012, and past eight years of hand-holding such students have helped several of them to come out with flying colours with engineering degrees and get acceptance in the highly-paid job market. This year’s camp is an expression of elevated efforts by our scientific community to make available meaningful inclusive education for the learning disabled,” said V K Damodaran, chairman of Chakshumathi.
The first phase (April 16 to 20) will help visually impaired youth to be independent with the required technological skills to use computer effectively for regular classwork, homework and examinations. The second phase (April 21 to 25) is meant to develop ‘scientific temper’ among children who would love learning of science and technology related topics and books.
Students from Class VII and above can apply before April 12. Contact 98214 52692 for details.