Its that time of the year again.. when we look wistfully at
the year gone by and hopefully at the year coming up..
This is also Esha’s annual roundup for you – in familiar
bullet points J
This was a very good year for Esha. We entered into some
lovely partnerships:
·
SOIL –
School of Inspired Leadership. 4 students from SOIL are doing an year long
internship with Esha, where they contribute one day a week to working with us.
It has been a lovely experience with Rosemary, Sabrish, Sahil and Vipul. SOIL
students recorded for CLABIL for the third year in a row during the Joy of
Giving week. The relationship with everyone at SOIL has been too wonderful and
enriching to be put into words.
·
The Sri Ram
School, Aravali also was a year long partner. Class 7 students of TSRS
Aravali went to a blind school as part of the school’s partnership with Esha. I
always say that the blind don’t get greeting cards. But this year, students of
Class 7 surprised us by making one card for every student that they were going
to meet at the blind school. I was, simply, overwhelmed. Am taking the liberty
of attaching a picture of the cards they made, along with their teachers.
Every single student of Class 7 also recorded for
CLABIL. J Every visit to the blind
school was an enriching experience for both sides – the guests always prepared
something for their hosts – a song, a card, a skit.. the works. The enthusiasm
of these children truly made one grateful for the work that happens through us.
180 students are today more sensitive to the needs of
visual challenge, thanks to the initiative of their school.
·
The
Kahaani Project was our third important partnership of the year. Now, we
will share each other’s content and use it for common good. Thank you, Ajay for
contributing over 50 files to CLABIL.
·
In May this year, we ran a 3 day training
program on Open Source based personal computing for the visually challenged.
The potential was immense. This training was run at 3 blind schools in the
Delhi NCR region as a pilot. Unfortunately, that training will have to be part
of our lessons learnt, till we are able to redesign the model and launch the
program again. But one good thing came out of that training – we got an Open
Source evangelist who is now working to familiarise his peers with the free
software that makes personal computing so easy. Thanks to Archana, he also has
a personal laptop of his own, and he uses it to good effect.
·
Braille cards continue to be popular and well
liked. The Delhi center, which was operational for the most part, had to be
closed (again!) because of the migration of the person doing that work here in
Delhi. It is my fervent hope that these adults, who learn the Braille enabling
of visiting cards, are in some way, doing things in their own villages too.
·
The theatre workshops had a very good run in the
first half of the year and slowed down in the second half. Am now planning to
have public workshops and am working towards getting the space for that.. if
that happens, we will be able to offer workshops to a lot more people.. you can
wish us luck on that one, and yes, if someone you know is looking for a fun
activity for their team in the NCR region, do think of the 9Tanki theatre
workshop. It will be a lot of fun!
·
This year, we ran an exhaustive market test
study on the Tactile mazes and on the basis of the results, we have had to take
the tough decision of discontinuing tactile mazes as an Esha product. But they
will always remain special. You can see this much loved, but unsustainable
product here: https://www.facebook.com/eshabraille/media_set?set=a.165678970149679.58488.100001227328495&type=1
·
CLABIL continued
to grow – organically. With volunteers and partners and loving friends. We
close the year with 1960 files - just short of 2000. But there is a lot
more work to be done.
I noticed that the update is really long, and we have only
tried to sum up the most important points.. J
There is no end to how far we can go, when we travel with friends.. so i will
end the year with the emotion one feels most at this time – Gratitude. For
every single Friend of Esha. For everyone who has been with us as we complete 9 years and enter our 10th year in January 2014, and for everyone who joined the
caravan along the way.
For every prayer that was sent up for us, and for every hand
that helped.
But most of all, for the God that chose an instrument, and
kept believing in it.
Wishing you and your loved ones
a very happy 2014!
