Audiobooks come to the rescue of visually impaired students

Bhubaneswar: At a time when studies have been affected across the board owing to the nationwide lockdown, the picture is even grimmer for blind students as online classes are of little help for them.

India is home to 20 per cent of total visually-impaired population in the world which counts nearly 62 million among which 8 million are afflicted with complete blindness and the remaining with low vision.

However, the silver lining amidst this crisis is that many youngsters have come forward to record audiobooks which are reportedly providing immense help to the blind students to take up their studies.
Abhaya Mohanta, Co-founder of We4You, which records audiobooks for the blind students in the state, said,

“Several youngsters and people from other states have joined us for taking up the initiative during the lockdown. While everyone is scared and confused about how to spend the time effectively, we have received several volunteers who are willing to become voice donors. From passionate youngsters to motivated elderly people, a lot of volunteers are getting associated with this noble initiative through which they can properly utilise their time during this lockdown and can even contribute their bit towards being responsible and sensible citizens of the country.”

The procedure is simple and it doesn’t involve any physical presence to lend your voice.
Mohanta said, “We send the volunteers books through WhatsApp or email by scanning the books properly or in PDF format. More than 80 new volunteers have joined us for recording audio materials during corona lockdown.”
He said the books meant for students from Class I to post graduation are recorded in various languages like English, Hindi and Odia. Students preparing for competitive examinations across the country also send the PDF of the required books and they are also being recorded and delivered through mail.

The books are provided free of cost and are easily accessible. The audiobooks are also being provided through memory chips, pen drives, compact disks, MP3 players and other storage devices as preferred by the students. Till now we have sent audio books to more than 10,000 active users across the country and state.

Sunanda Menon, a resident of Bangalore, who spends three hours a day for recording large volume of literature books for the blind students, said “Since all of us are staying home during the lockdown, this initiative has opened an opportunity to provide some good services to the blind students.”

Amita Singh, head of Odisha Bikerni Bike Group, said that recording multiple books for the blind students is definitely a tough job but doing this one can break the boredom during the lockdown. “I recorded as many books as possible in a day,” she added.

Pabitra Patra, a Plus III first year a blind student of Ravenshaw University, said “Classes have already been started through a video app but that is not helpful for us. The audiobooks, however, help us in accessing necessary study material.

Arindam Ganguly, OP