How to Conduct a Blind Walk

A lot of the Friends of Esha have been happy to hear of the Blind Walk, and have indicated a desire to conduct Blind Walks near their own homes.

So, we created this document on "How to Conduct a Blind Walk" .

How to Conduct a Blind Walk- Organizer’s Guide

Introduction

This document is for all the friends of Esha who want to organise a Blind Walk. This is a complete organiser’s guide, and we hope this will help in conducting the Walk successfully.

Blind Walk

Blind walk is an activity conducted for people to experience the challenges faced by visually impaired people. The primary purpose of this event is to raise public awareness about the difficulties and help create a sense of responsibility in the society.

The events are staged in the centre of densely crowded places or parks or malls to gain attention to the general public in the area. It is imminent need for the people to look forward to help disabled people in the light of any adversary they face in their day to day activities. Blind walk helps create an impact by making them feel and experience the same.

Requirement Gathering

People Required:

i)                    Participants: 4 to 10 participants. Advised to start with fewer people during the initial blind walk and adding more participants subsequently.

ii)                   Volunteers:  At least  1 volunteer per two participants

Time Required:

One Week

Organising – Preparatory work

1.       Decide the venue for conducting the walk. The walk should be conducted preferably in a busy public place to spread awareness among the public for the need of equal inclusive environment for the disabled and for the participants to get the actual realistic experience

2.       If needed, permission has to be taken from the concerned authorities to conduct the blind walk in the public place

3.       Make arrangements for Canes (sticks used by the blind for support) to identify obstacles during the walk and for direction

4.       Identify volunteers and instruct them with the below guidelines:

i)                    The volunteers should not help or give directions to the participants during the walk but just guide them  when there is an obstacle

ii)                   Volunteers should not guide more than two participants at a time during the walk

iii)                 Volunteers should ensure safety during the activity

5.       Gather participants for the walk and instruct them with the guidelines as well. It is important the participants are aware of the purpose of the walk, which they will certainly experience

Organising - One day before

1.       It is important to conduct a site visit of the selected place for the walk prior to the day of the event and ensure that the location of event is secure

2.       During the site visit it is important to fix the start and end points of the brief walk such that it is of 100mts to 200mts distance with less possible obstacle on the path

3.       Make sure the availability of the volunteers and the participants, importantly if sufficient volunteers are available to guide the participants

4.       Ensure sufficient canes are available, one per participant

5.       Make arrangement for a person to record the walk and the participant’s experience at the end of the walk

Organising - On the day of Blind Walk

1.       Reach the venue a little ahead of the others with the volunteers

2.       Make sure the spot is reasonably busy for the public to see the event and suitable for the walk

3.       The canes and camera to record are the only properties required, ensure you have them ready in good condition

4.       When the volunteers arrive, guide them to the decided blind walk start point. Explain the following to them:

1.       Show the end point to finish the walk

2.       Introduce them to their respective volunteers who will closely walk with them

3.       Inform them the volunteers will not give them any directions, will just protect them from obstacles coming on their way.

4.       Let them know the walk will give them a completely new experience

5.       Ask them to close their eyes once they start walking, and keep their eyes closed till they reach the destination and their volunteer instructs to open them.

6.       The volunteer will intervene if there is a physical danger to the participant (e.g., the participant is moving towards a staircase, or towards a high traffic area or a wall) .

5.       The purpose of the event should be declared to the crowd observing the event. Interested public can also be allowed to experience the walk.

Organising - Follow up Activities

1.       Please record the experience of the participants after the walk. You will be amazed by different experiences and realizations from the participants. Preferably a clear video/audio recording.

2.       Please email their experiences to eshabraille@gmail.com  which will be posted in Esha’s blog http://eshabraille.blogspot.in/ for a wider reach.

3.       If you want to upload the video/audio recordings and images of the walk and the experience, kindly share it in our Facebook page ‘Esha – People for the Blind’

 

How to make a Geography tactile map

Earlier, Here and Here, we have created Tutorials on how to make tactile maps and 3D models of officers and buildings.

Today, lets see how we can convert normal maps of India, cities and continents to Tactile.

Step 1 : Determine the size. A tactile map almost always will need to be hanged at some place, so ask the person upfront if they want it hanged and if they have enough space.

2. Check the storage conditions. This is very important. Where the storage is in a damp place, ensure that only a laminated map is used.

3. Decide on the details. Tactile detailing takes space. Braille labels take space. Do work out what is possible in advance. The boundary (be it city, country) is definitely required. The capital is also required.

4. Get started: First, create the outline with the dark colored twine. It is easier to work from inside out than to work outside in.

5. After the twine, come the buttons, bindis or crystals.

6. The Braille labels come at the end.

7. Use long stay glue to ensure the longevity of the map.

8. Pack in cling film for storage.

Notes:
1.  It is NOT advised to put braille labels on cities unless the map is big enough to have labels next to ALL cities. Much easier to use a different type of button for each city, and then to create a legend somewhere (bottom right corner usually) . There need to be 2 buttons of each type. Please touch the buttons with your eyes closed to ensure that you can tell them apart without looking at them.

2. The continent boundaries should be thicker than the country boundary, and the country boundary thicker than the state boundary.

3. When creating maps of cities, use territorial markings only. Refer a municipality approved map.

4. Do not mix physical and political maps in the same map. Create 2 different maps . They are easy to do.

5. When doing physical maps, we can use the following indicative materials:
   1. Flat Lands: Green velvet paper.
   2. Mountains/ Peaks: Use simple game counters for peaks. You can also create small 3D peaks using play dough that children use. Don't make them so high that the person cannot navigate around the peaks to the base.
3. For plateaus, raise the surface according to the nature of the plateau. You can also use material like thermocol if required.
4. For water bodies, you can use 3D paints to create a "wave" pattern within the body in addition to using high contrast blue.
5. All physical maps can be legended using buttons, bindis, cones etc, so long as these items are physically distinguishable. But do legending only after discussion with the user. Not all users are braille literate.
6. DO draw a scale on tactile maps. That one needs to be labelled.

Here is a sample tactile map that we made once:

 

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.