Esha finishes 20 years

On January 5, quietly, Esha finished 20 years of existence. 

We usually mark Jan 4th - the birthday of Louis Braille, as our important day. We owe the first inclusion and empowerment to Braille. Jan 4th is World Braille Day. 

But since Covid, Esha has been in some sort of cold storage. I have not given up on my work. Esha is my soul's work. Life has taken over. For a while, there was a crisis of faith. I didn't know what space we filled in the sector. Earlier, we pioneered Braille visiting cards, then an online audio library in Indian languages. Then sensitization. 

But now, what were we? What was needed from us? How could we help? 

As Covid lifted, I found that space - independent research. 

We got one report out. 

The second research, which I wanted to start and conduct in 2024, did not happen. Maybe it was lack of hard work at my end. Maybe it was just timing. Maybe it is our inexperience in conducting deep behavioural research. Either way, there was a lesson there. 

As 2025 starts, it is my fervent prayer that this year will mean more work at Esha. Return to our focus on sensitisation - because I know that is important and it really helps. Likewise, I do believe in the importance of independent research and our ability to contribute there. 

Here's to 2025. 

Why did you start Esha?

"Why did you climb the Mt. Everest?"
"Because it was there."
- Edmund Hillary


I don't know why I started Esha. I also don't know why empowering blindness meant so much. I guess the answer would have to be "Because it was there - the need to empower. The day that need vanishes, I will not do Esha."


Dignity, Empowerment and Enablement - the 3 key words that we live by. We believe in them. We say them over and over again. When people volunteer with us, we first make them unlearn "poor thing" as the first response to disability. We make them experience why the first response should be "Wow" and not "Poor Souls"


That's why we do Esha - because that unlearning is still necessary.. That's why we go to work every morning.. because there is someone out there, who needs to visit the Qutub Minaar but can't see. That's why we do the Blind Walks. That's why we do Braille Cards. That's why we do Theater Workshops. Because there is a 14 year old in a school who will go through this experience, and end his workshop with "Salute!" to the VI population.


God knows why I started Esha. But you know why Esha will continue to run.

Thoughts on International Disability Day 2014

As one more International Day for PWD dawns, we are not celebrating. Because we wonder when these terms will change. Suppose it was, International Day to become aware of Disablers? Suppose this were a day when, instead of looking around and saying, "Oh, we must do more for PWD" , we said, "We have been disablers for far too long. That must change TODAY."

Suppose, this day were to dawn differently? Suppose we were to start the day by everyone doing something to enable the world around them? Learn Sign language, pick up Braille, record an audio book, create a ramp near their house or in the colony park, visit a blind school to understand ability rather than disability?

That would be a good start. There is a Hindi saying that goes, "बात करने से बात बनती है " - When you communicate, things happen. But to communicate, we have to speak the same language - suppose we took the first direction towards that communication?

बात करने से बात बनती है.

The Journey to Ithaca

Many years ago, a kind teacher gave us  a poem to read. The Journey to Ithaca.

When one sent 4 very intelligent young people to a not so well to do Blind School in Delhi, India, one felt just a little bit like that teacher and a little bit like the Kaveri amma in Swades.
(In that film, Kaveri Amma sent him to collect rent from a tenant who is not paying up. Watch that shot sometime for the look on Kaveri Amma's face. (couldn't find it on youtube) )

After reading these guest posts, one feels a lot of gratitude.. it is one thing to associate with Esha because one wants to do something good. Quite another to open one's heart to blindness as a cause. I often tell people that once you have visited a blind school, you are never the same person again. With these young people, I have actually seen that transformation happen. Their eyes light up just a little differently now when we talk about our work at Esha, our shared vision for the year ahead.

Today's gratitude, is for the Hope of Ithaca in our lives, and for being a small boat on that journey to Ithaca for some very young, very committed people. Many years later, as they send a young person to a blind school, mindful of the way they are about to change their perspective, I hope that they think of Ithaca, look up and wink, aware that they have now become a boat to Ithaca.

 

Namchi Blind School , Sikkim

Its a gruelling 3 hour drive from Gangtok. At the end of which, you arrive at a small, beautiful building in a lovely place. It is early January, it is cold, and there is no one about.

The experience at Namchi Blind School cannot be described in words. Perhaps that's why this blog post is so belated. Of all the experiences that I have shared at Esha, few have been as deep as this one.

The school has never heard of audio. They were delighted when we told them that we could send them audio content. "What is it like?" asked the principal sir. On the spot, I downloaded some content from the library on the smartphone and played it to them. Their faces went from lack of recognition to beaming smiles.. "This is really good!"

We spoke about other things.. the lack of resources (but that's for another post), how much the school administration is trying. They didn't need to tell me about the lack of resources. It was obvious.

And then I met Tenzing sir. He is an SP at the Namchi Blind School, but every weekend, he is at the school. When the school's only hall was damaged in a fire, he didn't ask his orderlies to paint for him. He saw that the school had no funds, took a paint bucket and paint brush and just got started. On that cold winter day, he was out, trying to repair the plumbing of the school. A pipe had burst and he wanted to use that opportunity to create 2 taps instead of one, because the children don't wash up properly with only one tap and so many of them. Yes, people like that exist.

The principal, the few students who were there.. everyone..

When I asked them what we could record in audio for them, everyone told us unianimously that they wanted only English. "Your files the English is understandable. we want this only."

Some days ago, the Devnar Foundation in Hyderabad also asked for no Telugu, only English.

And I wont write more about the personal trip that was Namchi.

Photographs from our Facebook are available here.
 

Year in Review - 2013

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 10^th 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!

The Social Project at SOIL

On 22nd of October, we started a small social experiment at SOIL - School of Inspired Leadership.

The project was simple. A set of books on a table, with a collection box next to them. You pick up a book, pay what you think is fair for that book, and take it. No one mans the counter - night or day. The piggy bank is not locked, its in the college canteen. its a small earthern gullak, the kind that cannot be locked, can only be broken.
All proceeds were to be donated to Esha, but I really wasn't thinking of the money in this project.
How was this project to be sustained? When people want to donate books, they leave them there. That simple. Two other volunteers have already donated books.

Why did I do this?

1.       Because, inherently, I love books. And I want them to reach more people while we do fundraising.

2.       Because this is a world that shares very little and wastes much. I want us to share. To reuse. And to waste less. Especially, books.

3.       Because I want to believe in the inherent goodness of people. Because I do believe that an experiment like this needs no policing. Sure you can pick up a book and pay nothing. But will you ? Sure, you can run away with the collection box. But will you? I wanted to find out.

Sometime in mid December, we  broke open that gullak - and were pleasantly surprised. More than the money, it restored one's faith in the inherent goodness around one..

A few days later, Rosemary shared the video. Am sharing it with you. The opening of that gullak was such a celebration!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED6nQkssBjs&feature=youtu.be

Meanwhile, the project continues in the SOIL canteen at Gurgaon. If you are ever there, do look up our book stall and see if you like a book, or if you want to donate some..

What we want

Today, i was at the AICB, at their really nice computer lab, explaining to them about the CLABIL project and looking at avenues of joint collaboration. (i'd basically gone there to pick up a brailler and we got talking)

Two of our most successful projects on the CLABIL (www.clabil.org) are:
Learn English
GK

When i said this, the computer teacher smiled and nodded in agreement. i was thinking of that nod and agreement on the way home and realised something really interesting. In a normal school, if we ask them what more they want, GK is never likely to be on that list. Sighted children get an overdose of GK and current affairs, and will do a lot to avoid having to read more GK. While our children seek out GK.

I think thats an interesting ... juxtaposition.

The word believe actually means Be.Live. To believe something is to BE it and to LIVE it.

Nowhere is it more true that at Esha. If we didnt believe in this idea so completely, we could never have realised, to whatever extent, this insane dream.

 

John Wood's Leaving Microsoft to change the world

Thank you, Ruchi, for insisting that i should read this book. I have loved it from the first page.

And there is so much to learn from the book - everyday.

I scurry to the book every 10 seconds i get.. between the computer booting up, at the traffic signal, every conceivable place.

So, here is what i have learnt so far.

• Follow your dream once you have found it. It might take away some other very important things from your life, but it will still be worth it.
• The happiness you get out of seeing people benefit from your work is immense.
• This is something that i also believe in a lot - You are just a conduit - the work happens on its own. people will always pitch in when you need help. It will come. Just believe. and wait.
• Think BIG. Braillecards is India's only service provider for braille cards. We have to convert at least 10% of all cards printed in india to braille. We are getting there, because we knew we were going to be big from the word go. CLABIL is India's biggest online audio library. It will scale up. We will take time, but we know where we're headed. Someday, audio resources will be as diverse as google is today. We'll get there. The design was for a big library, the idea was for consolidation of individual efforts.

Reading this book is a very positive experience. One learns on every page, and more importantly, its like having a conversation with someone whose ideas you understand. The struggles, the inevitable doubt, all of it is inspirational.

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.

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. :-)

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?