Happy New Year from Esha

Thank you, for being a friend of Esha, this year, and in the years that went before.

This is our annual bullet point review of what we did well, and what can be done better.  We know you are very busy, so this review is always in bullet points. J

But one point is important enough to jump out and sit on top of the bullet points. Please do read this one.

The CLABIL Project – what it can do

I started the online audio library in Indian languages for one reason – to make audio content easily available to the visually challenged, who do know English.

But this year, gradually, I realised that the CLABIL is more than that. Its an important national resource. Here’s why:

1.       Our official literacy rate is around 55%. The actual literacy (where people can read and write more than just their name and the alphabet, and can use the written word for any real exchange of ideas) is likely to be around 45%. OF these, even fewer will know English. But the way we have designed our world, is that access to English controls access to knowledge resources too.

2.       Once we remove this restriction – of English = knowledge, we will be able to make real knowledge available to a lot of people. Millions of them.

3.       This access to knowledge can, and will change their lives in a very positive way – small traders will have access to better business practices, little girls and children will know what their rights are, without knowing English. Children in remote villages will know about inventions and progress that can make life better for them and their villages. Women will know about their rights, even if they are unschooled. They will have access to literature that teaches them self respect.

And my new year wish, personally, is that this library should go on to create that value that it can potentially create for those millions. This is a very, very ambitious wish.

But step by step, day by day, we will be on our way.

What went well

·         The Delhi Center is finally operational. It is extra heartening that the boy is not just visually challenged, but also a tribal. Hopefully, when he takes this tale of self reliance back home, his grit will inspire others.

·         This year, we got The REX Global Karmaveer Puraskar – for being agents of change. This award goes out to every single Friend of Esha, who has done whatever they could to make Esha, and more importantly, the idea of Esha, a reality.

·         We did very well on the Braille cards and on the Theater workshops. The workshops continue to be funny and much liked. The Braille cards continue to be used by more and more people. We added some more corporate customers this year, and hopefully, the year ahead will add a lot more.

·         The Read Fests – small one day events where we record content for the CLABIL project at one go and then upload it, was done enthusiastically by a lot of organisations. IIT Delhi, SOIL (who did it for the second year running), Copal Partners (who ran it for a week ), The Sri Ram School (where students, on their own, tested every file before saving it, so we don’t have to do any follow up work, and STILL generated the highest no. of files in a single day – 96 files in one go) , and many others.

What we can do better
·         Get more volunteers involved.  We are missing a lot of opportunities because we are just not able to go and meet people.

·         We also need to start asking the questions around funding, expansion and growth very seriously now. Whether we like it or not, growth is happening at an exponential pace for Esha and its products. Please advise – what will be the best way to take Esha forward. The questions are around getting funding when we have no time to go meet people, getting paid volunteers who have the same fire in belly(Esha is a LOT of work) . These are the growth challenges facing us today, and we need all the advice and help we can get.

 

Where we need help

·         We desperately need technical help – especially on the online library – www.braillecards.org/audio.htm. i spoke to some technical people on this, but we have not been able to find a viable solution yet. Anyone who knows php dynamic rendering, please do get in touch. It doesn’t have to be free. If you know someone who can take this up as a paid assignment, we’ll be happy to have them.

·         We need some content recorded in Audio.

o   Laws demystified – especially for children, women, and senior citizens.

o   “Learn English” – in Marathi in particular, which a lot of people search for, and in other Indian languages.

o   Wikipedia in Indian languages, or GK in Indian languages.

o   Career counselling and awareness about various career options in Indian languages.

If you can record at home, or conduct a theme based Read Fest around you, will help  a lot.

 We end the year in gratitude for all the good things that happened, and for all the lessons learnt. We start the year with fervent hope, and a lot of zeal. Happy New Year to you and your loved ones.

PS: If you have not joined Esha on facebook yet, please do. www.facebook.com/eshabraille

Need Help: Legal Rights in everyday language.

 Please help create some legal guidelines in Indian languages that can be used by those of us who are not english literate.

For instance, what are the rights of a married woman in her marital and parental home? what are the legal options for parents who have been abandoned by their children? or parents who are being pressurised by children to give up their financial rights to their own property.

This content will help a lot of people. please spread the word. you can record in any Indian language or even English, spoken slowly and in indian accent.

We are the Disablers - Thoughts on World Disability Day,

Why do Russians get along just fine in Russia? Why do Germans get along just fine in Germany? And why do the blind get along just fine  in a Blind School, but really poorly outside? Why do some places witness more inbound migration than some others?

Because these environments are ENABLED for them. When a culture is open and accepting, when it wants to learn, and to enrich itself through further interaction with cultures it knows nothing about, then it becomes an ENABLING culture – it enables itself to continually grow, and it enables other people to become comfortable in itself.

Therefore, if you find a certain section of people “just plain unfortunate” or “so different from us” – please remember, they are not the disabled, we are the disablers.

Compared to a dog, our sense of smell is severly hampered and we are, in the eyes of the dog, quite literally, “smell disabled”. Likewise, a cat’s ability to see in the dark is far higher than ours and to the cat, we appear quite “disabled”, almost blind for half of our lives – the entire night, since we can’t see beyond a certain range at all.

So, in effect, we are all “disabled”. But it never affects our ability to go on with our lives, and does not impact our ability to lead productive lives. Because we have enabled the world to make the best use of the faculties that we do have, and to help us with the stuff that we don’t have. Keyword: we have “enabled” the world.

Why is it not that way for the blind, or the deaf-mute, or the other  differently abled? Because we have not enabled this world for their kind of disability. Only for ours.

Today, the Wrold Disability Day is not for the people we call "disabled". It is for us - the Disablers.

Karamveer Puraskar @ Rex Conclave

Awards are unnecessary for people who deserve it the most because for them award, reward and fulfillment all is there in their work itself. Nidhi Arora, Founder of Esha, is one such humble person.

Therefore, this is a Guest post by Aradhna, a friend of Esha who thinks Awards are necessary. They are necessary because they celebrate HOPE for all of us that there is some good work which is getting noticed and cheered for. 

Nidhi Arora has been awarded Karamveer Puraskaar (KVP) 2011 - 2012.


The KARMAVEER PURASKAAR is an endeavor to recognize and celebrate the power of ONE individual who believed that she/ he could BE THE CHANGE. 

The KARMAVEER PURASKAAR celebrates and recognizes  individual citizens from various sectors of society who have walked the talk and decided that it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, thus inspiring others to BE THE CHANGE. 

This award is constituted by iCONGO - International Confederation of NGOs. 
The felicitation took place at Rex Conclave. REX is inspired and designed as the ASIAN equivalent equivalent of TED. 

Nidhi also gave a captivating speech on "Democratization of Knowledge" at REX, which will be shared soon.

Here is to more such awards, recognition and celebration of hope!!

Happy Diwali

Diwali and Holi are both important festivals at Esha. Because the celebration of color and light is very important to us.

Here's wishing you, and all Friends of Esha a very Happy Diwali..

Help light up a life today!

new file uploaded: The importance of Voice Delivery in an interview

SOIL (School of Inspired Leadership, Gurgaon) did a Read Fest during the Joy of Giving Week. This was our second year of the REad FEst and while a big round of applause goes to the student volunteers for making it all happen so well, one file stands out. The files are still in post processing and will be added to the main catalog sometime this week.

But this one file, i didnt want it to wait..

The importance of voice delivery in interviews. If you are visually challenged and need help for interview preparation.. this is the file you have been waiting for. Dont miss this excellent tutorial by Sapan, a student at SOIL.

You can download this file from here.

Beyond Sight Exhibition in Delhi - October 2012

thats raised relief version of a beautiful pic. next to that is braille,
followed by audio.

here you can see the entire display - the picture, its story in english,
 the raised relief version so that the photographers are not
left out of experiencing their own pictures..
the braille description, and the audio mp3 player.

my favorite picture from the exhibition.

this pic stands out for this technical perfection. notice again
the raised relief version, english print, braille and audio description.
i was very impressed.

this little boy was too young to read ,
so he listened to the audio to understand the picture
 on his own. It WAS an experience.

 

And what a treat it was! so much to learn, so much to see!!

How to Organise a Read Fest - Part 2

Organising – Preparatory Work

1.      Take permission from IT and other relevant departments for the infrastructure requirement:

a.       Meeting rooms, with as little ambient noise as possible. These will be used as recording rooms. If you are choosing adjacent meeting rooms, it makes sense to leave one room empty between 2 recording rooms.

b.      Each meeting room needs a laptop / desktop with a working mic(internal or external mic is fine)  . This computer must have “Audacity” installed. Audacity is freely downloadable from www.sourceforge.net. Just search for Audacity and download. After this, try to save a test file as mp3 format. The system will prompt you to download a dll file by pressing a button. This button takes you to the dll file download site. It is safe. Please download dll and then save the file as mp3 once more. All Audacity computers should be able to save mp3 formats.

c.       Each recording room will also need water bottles / glass for the recording volunteer.

d.      You need to put up posters and also do some internal marketing to generate awareness about the event.

e.       Content: If you are a school / college, please request your teachers to contribute their papers / question banks for the Read Fest. They are an invaluable resource. If you are a student, please record your notes for all subjects if they are not already available in the catalog. If you are an office, record experiences of your profession so that other people can take a more informed career decision. The blind do not get career counselling or a chance to interact with professionals in this way. You can also record interview facing tips.

f.       All computers must be usb enabled. The content, once done, will be taken by the organiser in a pen drive.

g.      If any permission is required to send a pen drive / import a pen drive into office, please take such permissions.

h.      Arrange for visitor management to be approved if you are expecting any visitors – either from Esha or external for recording.

i.        All computers must also have unrestricted net access to Wikipedia, blogs and all other sites.

j.        If the requirement is of sample question papers and you have found some free ones offline, do save the link in favourites and ask the site administrator for permission. It is not always possible to find it last minute.

k.      Load the following documents on all machines:

                                                              i.      How to record for CLABIL (audacity user manual)

                                                            ii.      Read Fest FAQs

                                                          iii.      How to record (audio file)

l.        At some distance from the recording rooms, but close enough to be able to see them, is a control center. You need 3 volunteers are the control desk at all times. These volunteers will play the following roles:

                                                              i.      Content management – what has been recorded and what needs to be done yet. The content manager also does on the spot cataloguing as the files get recorded, or makes the catalog at the end of the read fest. But a record of what is being done by whom is kept by this person.

                                                            ii.      Queue management – who goes in in what order, who has practiced what they are going to record, who is ready to go in, how long is each one’s slot et al. The queue manager co-ordinates with the content manager to give content to volunteers and with the meeting room manager to send ppl when rooms get free.

                                                          iii.      Recording room management – This person is responsible for managing which meeting room is empty, guiding the volunteers to the meeting room, ensuring there is a glass of water there for them, then giving them a tutorial on audacity, explaining :

1.      How to record

2.      How to pause and resume recording

3.      How to stop and listen back if they doubt correct recording.

4.      How to check recording.

5.      How to correct by deleting the wrong parts.

6.      How to start a new segment.

7.      How to save as mp3 file and at what location.

8.      How to name the file for easy cataloguing.

9.      How to check your voice recording and correct before starting the final recording.

When the volunteer finishes, this person checks that the file has been saved correctly (mp3 format, naming convention, location of file) and then asks the queue manager for the next person who will come in.

All these 3 are full time roles with a lot of running around and 3 volunteers are mandatory for the control desk. Otherwise no one has a good experience.

2.      Complete the set up et al.

3.      Circulate a mail / communication asking for volunteers to pre register, with the Indian language that they can record in. This will help you prepare content.

How to convert your mobile phone recordings into mp3

If you are recording on your mobile phone for clabil, you will find that the voice quality is excellent, but the file type is usually .amr, not .mp3.

This might pose a problem to some users who dont have amr file readers.

Special thanks to Dadaji (Mr. Anil Bhagat, who has been a Friend of Esha for a few years now), for coming up with this site:

http://www.convertfiles.com/

we now use this site to convert .amr files to mp3 and then upload them to the library.

Coming up next: How to organise a read fest (contd)
 

How to organise a Read Fest - Part 1

Read Fests are lovely events that help everyone contribute to content creation for the blind, and also help us enrich the online library at one go.

This post is about conducting a Read Fest at a place near you - a school, college, office, residential community.. anywhere at all. No matter where the content is created, it can be uploaded and shared with everyone very quickly.

How to Conduct a Read Fest – Organiser’s Guide
Introduction

This document is for all Friends of Esha who want to organise a Read Fest at a school, college, residential colony or office near them. This is the complete organiser’s guide, and we hope this will help make the Read Fest a complete event possible anywhere in India, or indeed, anywhere at all.

Requirement Gathering

People Required
At least 2.

Time Required

 2 weeks.

When should this be done

If you want to do a Read Fest to support a specific school, or a set of people who can be represented by the school. Or when you want to contribute to clabil but have no idea what kind of content should be picked up.

Steps

1.      Contact a blind school near you. Explain the concept to the principal / administrator.

2.      Request the principal to identify some intelligent and sincere students from the school – which grade they are from is not important.

3.      On a designated day, go to the school and meet these students. For breaking the ice, the following conversation starters are good:
                  a.       Have u read Braille books? In which all languages?

b.      Have u heard audio books? Through daisy or through mp3?

c.       How did you hear the audio books? In school library cd players? On ur cell phones? How?

d.      What do u want to be when you grow up?

e.       What is your favourite subject? Why?

f.       What do you like to do in your free time?

4.      After ice breaking, ask the students, one by one, what they would like more of in audio content. Make sure that as one person is asking, the other is taking down notes. If only one volunteer is going, pls carry a Dictaphone or use the voice recorder of ur smartphone, so that notes are not lost.

5.      Come back and chk the catalog to ensure that the content you want is not already there. If it is there, download and keep. (the catalog is online at www.braillecards.org/audio.htm and you can contact eshabraille@gmail.com for the offline catalog which is usually bigger.

6.      After checking the catalog, start looking for content.

7.      Where you are taking content from an online blog, or other private sources, please write to them and take permission.
.. post to be continued..

Blind With Camera exhibition finally at Delhi!

Partho Bhowmick has been doing some stellar work with photography for years now.

Blind with Camera is my personal favorite innovation that has sustained itself for years and is therefore, a strong proof of what belief in a concept can do.

Finally, the Blind with Camera exhibition is coming to Delhi. please do not miss this opportunity.
*************************

You are cordially invited to the opening and preview of “WIDE EYE OPEN” - Exhibition of photographs by the Visually Impaired on 

Friday 5th October 2012 at 6.30 pm at the Galerie Romain Rolland, Alliance Francaise de Delhi, 72, Lodi Estate, New Delhi - 110003.

The exhibition will be on view until Thursday 18th October 2012 from 11 am to 8 pm all days including Sunday.

 Looking forward to see you at the exhibition. 

 ********************************************

If we dont go for this, we will miss something in life.

What would you like in audio ?

We have another Read Fest coming up. A Read Fest is where people get together, and record audio. Then we upload that audio in the online library. its that simple :-) its done at schools, colleges, and offices, all with spectacular results.

If you know anyone who is visually challenged and needs something in particular, please do ask them to reach us by 20th september, and i will try to include it in the reading list for the next Read Fest. I am now trying this approach so that we create material that is immediately required.

The audio library is at www.braillecards.org/audio.htm

 

New Files uploaded

Today, we have uploaded 2 science books from the Arvind Gupta collection - How did we know about Dinosaurs and how did we know about Vitamins. Both of these books, and the 3 childrens' stories, are a part of the massive Read Fest done by Copal Partners. (yeah, i m still consolidating that content. Its a LOT).

Enjoy (Arvind Gupta books are a deligh) and do spread the word!
 

Social Media lessons for esha -www.inclusiveplanet.com

In one of my other avatars, i love social media - especially its use by organisations to reach out to their stakeholders that matter.

One of the most important pieces of advice i give is to go where your audience is, instead of picking up a platform and expecting your audience to come there. So if your target audience is on facebook, go there. if your target audience is on twitter and prefers to correspond with crisp 140 char messages, go there.

Imagine my surprise, therefore, when, one day, on introspection, i realised that we were missing out on the biggest social media for our stakeholders - they browse and exchange ideas on www.inclusiveplanet.com , and while we did have a presence there, it was very sub optimal.

Am happy to report that as we write, we have made an effort to correct that. i have now been spending a lot of time engaging directly with people on www.inclusiveplanet.com . the sheer richness of sharing what happens there, is mindboggling.

Our focus always has been on reaching out to children and young people whose computer literacy is limited, or whose access to knowledge resources is very constrained. This here, is a set of computer literate, and heavy computer using visually challenged people, who are articulate about their challenges, their needs, and their accomplishments.

While we will continue to reach out to children who cannot reach a computer, it will also be lovely to help some of those who can reach a computer, and need to use that computer to reach their personal destinations. :-)

Update: Want to learn Braille?

If you want to learn Braille, this is one of those rare times. :-)

Tentatively on Saturday, August 25th, second half sometime, Esha will hold a Braille workshop. The venue is very likely to be close to DLF Phase 4 or 5.

It takes only about 20 minutes to learn Braille. So if you have always wanted to learn but didnt know whom to ask, or where to go, this is a good time to start!

Do spread the word.

Oh, and yes, we need a venue. The workshop is only for 5 seats (plus one seat for the trainer), and wont last longer than 40 minutes. The most suitable time is 1400 hours - just after lunch for most people. If you know someone who can volunteer a venue, please do let us know.

Help Needed: Bank Clerk Examination Material - English Medium

Deepak, who is visually challenged, is working towards his bank clerical exam. can you please help by recording content in audio for this boy in ENGLISH medium.

How to record:
1. Please do give credit to the site from where you are recording. If possible, do read out the full url.
2. Record as usual.
3. Upload mp3 file to the eshaclabil account (email eshabraille@gmail.com for the login credentials)

If you are new to recording for Esha, pls post a comment or send us an email, and will be happy to send across a detailed tutorial.

Copal Partners - Theater Workshop Feedback - Final episode

Sanyam
The experience at workshop was great. Even more important was to learn how difficult it is to live life with some incapability and our trainer “raju” made us understand that very well. Salute to him that he was achieved so much like medals and degree. He is really a role model for those who have difficulty. Loved the workshop.
Thanks

 Sonal Mehrotra

The workshop that was conducted made me realise how privileged I am with the gift of vision. There are so many people outside who are not so lucky. So I feel all of us should spare out some time from our busy schedules to help them and make their lives a little better. I would be more than happy to give my support to Drishti , in any possible way, in future as well.

Preeti Jain

It was really great experience attending this workshop. The difficulties which blind ppl face is just not comparable with any of us. Just in these 3 hour being part of workshop is just lived their life and it  was a great experience. Thanks to all.

Ranjeet R Pillai

It was quite an enriching experience. After today’s workshop I have even more realised the importance of our human organs, and how it feels to be deprived of even one of them. I really salute the people who are managing their lives in spite of their loss.

Have also decided to pledge my eyes. Looking forward to be more useful to society.

Rajesh

The experience that I feel through participating in this workshop is like how much difficult one should have without his eyes. It was so inspiring. I am speechless.

Lovelita Joseph

Through the workshop that we did I cant to experience how difficult it is for people who do not have sight. Though we see and notice people around us who are visually challenged but through this session which took hardly 5-10 minutes we could not do it without any prop etc. life is too difficult for them in reality whereas we sometimes feel that we lack so much. I really appreciate Drishti for the work that they are doing and I  have been blessed through this workshop. I really wish that we could actually support such people.

Ramanjeet Singh

Raju, you really taught me how well someone with a major disability can manage life and not for once crib about the fact that he does not have something.

Wonderful experience and very enlightening as well. It has encouraged me to think more.

Keep up the good work.

More feedback from Copal Partners workshop

this is belated.. but i just got around to typing all this out.. once again, thank you ppl, for the awesome feedback!

Sonam Chopra

Life is much more than just living it.. we do not realise how much gifted we are.

Raju is an apt example of “spirited” success , it’s the spirit, - the undying, persistent, never give up spirit that is necessary pre requisite for achievement.

It was awesome experience , eyes closed for five minutes made me relaise the “gift” I have been blessed with. Thank you so much.. thanks!

Keep up the good work – all the best!

Parul Dhir
Very good experience. Learnt so much; didn’t know how easily a small 3 hour workshop can bring so much appreciation for life, vision and just living.

Amazing trainer, kudos to him and his independence and zest of making it big in life. Best of luck to him and wish him all success in life.

Navket Verma

Just want to say THANKS A LOT RAJU for such a wonderful workshop. Really learnt a lot from such an amazing trainer. Raju has really impressed me with his achievements. Really don’t understand how he manages his time. .need to learn from him regarding TIME management.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Bhojpuri added to your library!

Today, with the Copal Partners Read Fest files upload, am super happy to report that we have now added Bhojpuri to our online library. The collection starts, predictably, with the Wikipedia article on the Bhojpuri language.  :-)

Here is the link to the library:
www.braillecards.org/audio.htm

and here is the link to the Bhojpuri article: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5ccTc80CD1pSzV0Z0MxNG9JWm8

Thank you, Copal Partners, for taking us to 16 Indian languages ... and we have just started cataloging! :-)

need help - gk in marathi

There is a request to record GK in marathi. If you can speak Marathi, please do record whatever Wikipedia articles you can find. Right now, we dont have anything.

The catalog is updated. Before recording, do check www.braillecards.org/audio.htm to see what is already recorded.

To see how to record for CLABIL, see this:
http://eshabraille.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/how-to-record-audio-books-for-the-clabil-project/

Once you have recorded, please email me at eshabraille@gmail.com and i will share the login credentials to upload to google docs. We are using google docs for our audio files.

Animal Farm now available in Audio

Thanks to the hard work put in by Suparnaa and Aparajita, the classic Animal Farm (a must read for everyone, really!) is now available in audio at www.braillecards.org/audio.htm

Pls feel free to download and share with anyone u know who might need it.

Animal Farm is not copyright protected in India. :-)

Need Help: anyone interested in guiding a project team

INCA - INitiative for Community Action - the student body at IIM Calcutta that provides consulting services to NGOs , has very sweetly agreed to do a project for Esha.

This is a research project which tries to answer the following questions:
1. At blind schools, what is the access that children have to audio resources.
2. Given this access, what is the utilisation - that is, how many children actually use the resources they have access to.
3. What is the cause of this utilisation? (whether high or low)
4. How do they actually use audio resources? What need is met (or what need would they like to meet) using audio resources.
5. What can we do, if anything, to improve awareness about, and usage of audio resources among the blind.

If any of you is interested in a project of this kind, and would like to guide the project team (students from IIM Cal - remote guidance only. no travel required), please do let me know. We really need collaboration on this project.

Thank you!

why reading the mother tongue is important

As part of Esha, we do a lot of Read Fests at schools, colleges and offices.
And increasingly, i have become aware of a seemingly small problem with huge implications.

A lot of volunteers cannot read, or fluently speak, any Indian language. Even their mother tongues.

And the reason why this is disturbing is this:
CLABIL is a way to bridge the literacy divide too. Access to English should not restrict access to knowledge resources.

The whole idea ot CLABIL is to create audio resources in Indian languages so that people(especially, the blind)  who do not have access to English education (Read: a vast majority of our population) do not lose access to knowledge. This is a form of democratisation of knowledge.

But when the generators of this content do not know Indian languages at all, we are faced with a vernacular illiteracy that makes it impossible for one set of people to communicate with the other set of people.

And then, the unique problem that we at Esha are faced with is this: People want to create content, but they cannot contribute in Indian languages. The beneficiaries want to use content, but English content is not the easiest for them to use.

What do you think we can do to solve this?

Feedback on the Copal Partners Staged Encounters

Syed Ayaz Mehndi
Life is a gift, and we sometimes take it for granted. We are displeased with what we have and always wish for more. I think if we stop and thing and look around us, there are so many people in the world who are not only poor but have some kind of disability.

Vision is n ability which is so important and this workshop helped me thing about it, again, in between my materialistic life. Thanks so much. The interaction was great. Keep up

Upendra Bhatt

It was a great experience for me, with lot of fun. Drishti is doing a great job. I wish them success in future.

Neha Narang

I would like to thank esha Braille and AICB for giving us the opportunity to be a part of this program. This was really an eye opener. I feel we all are really lucky that we can see. Now I can feel that it would actually be difficult if we have to feel how these people feel. Their pain can not be felt, cannot be imagined. Just in 5 minutes we felt so much of pain in finding each other. Everything was blank. It is seriously a pain. Thanks a lot again. Feel lucky that I could join.

Feedback from the Copal Partners Theater Workshop - July 2012

In this series, we post feedback of all the participants, in a series of posts - this is part 1. :-)

Garima Arora:

Its an honor and pleasure to be a part of this event. When we came across Raju and team, we realised the true meaning of vision in our lives. Its just that we are very selfish that we don’t try to understand its true meaning. I personally feel once I get a chance and If I am eligible, I would like to donate my eyes for someone.

 Priyam Barooah:

Attending the theatre workshop was an experience that made me practically realise how difficult it is to live life and get through day to day work without the gift of vision. I salute the people who are living a strong and independent life without vision and I believe every individual should have that kind of passion in life to do something in life.

I am considering taking the decision of doing something more and contributing for the blind after this experience.

Thank you!

Seema:

It is indeed very inspiring to see a blind person living his life to the fullest. It makes you think and makes you want to do more with you own life. A very big thank you to the organisers of this event to make me realise what more I should be doing with my life. A very powerful and confident presentation which was fun at the same time.

Theater Workshop (Staged Encounters) _ Copal Partners - July 2012

The best thing about Staged Encounters is that it’s a laugh riot.



Sample this:
How will we know its evening?
Ask the rooster, he was the one who told us about the morning.

Or this:
Beta, will you donate your eyes?
Wait papa, let me ask Pinky. (his gf)

When you spend 3 hours laughing, it does a world of good to your health.

The Theater workshop at Copal Partners was conducted in 2 batches – On 19^th and 20^th July, 2012

Lots of unique things about this workshop :

2 Friends of Esha volunteered to be co-trainers and experienced this workshop for the first time. Thank you, Ayesha and Smitha

The members of the first batch loved the trainer so much that the next day, when Raju went back for the second batch, the first batch had a gift waiting for him. We were all so touched. This was the first time that a batch actually thought of buying something for Raju.

It is very common to find people laughing their hearts out in Staged Encounters. But for the first time, we also saw people crying openly. Yes, in an office. That was a never before moment for Esha.

Parul (the HR manager from Copal Partners) just summed it up best :

Didn’t know how easily a small 3 hour workshop can bring so much appreciation for life, vision and just living.

You can see more pictures here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.421025654615008.119790.100001227328495&type=1&l=f28fa0fc7b

 

PS: With this post, we have moved the esha blog back to blogspot from Wordpress. You may want to update your bookmarks if thats relevant.