Scribes Wanted for CAT Aspirants

 What: Scribes to work with CAT Aspirants and to help them in the final exam

Where: Hyderabad

When: From now to the date of CAT

Time Commitment: 2 hours a day, about 2-3 times a week. Completely flexible.

How this works: You will be tagged with one aspirant. The idea is to get comfortable with each other so that you can effectively help them scribe on the final day.

How many: SIX volunteers wanted.

Details:

We are Vignesh and Sanjana, who are IIM Lucknow Alumni and founders of Mockat. We coach students for the CAT exam, which is the entrance test for most of the top Business Schools in India, include the 20 IIMs.

As a part of our social initiative, we recently started training 5 Visually Impaired students - Kottakapu Shivani, Rahul Munnur, Baddam Akash, Daya Praveen, Sharath Kumar Budida, who have performed very well academically (close to 90% in 10th , 12th and college). We are based out of Chennai but train the students online with about 5 to 6 classes per week. And, we are being mentored by Nidhi Arora, (IIM Calcutta ’01 batch, and Founder of Esha – People for the Blind). The students are highly talented and are now trained to mentally solve Easy to Moderate Questions.

CAT allows them to have a scribe who can read out the questions, write the steps and mark the answers. Given the nature of the exam and their disability, working closely with the scribe is extremely important to do well in this exam as it is a very fast-paced exam.

We are looking for 6 volunteers who can be the scribes for these 5 students from now to the CAT exam which will be held on 26th November 2023. All of the students are at HYDERABAD and can travel to the volunteer’s places, if required, as well. It would be helpful if the volunteers could spend about 2 hours of practice, 3 times a week. Timings are completely flexible as the students are preparing full-time. A few sessions can be held vide zoom as well.

These students are bright and motivated and want to succeed. Helping them on this front would really propel their career and their future. Please feel free to reach us at +91 9769744855 or +91 9930478173 if you could volunteer. Many Thanks.

Esha and Enable India - Enable Vaani

Esha is very happy to share a new collaboration with Enable India. Our CLABIL content is now available on EnableVaani project of Enable India. Enjoy the audio stories, quizzes, Asaan Ganit, and other audio content from CLABIL. What would you like to listen to?

http://appserver.gramvaani.org/app/user/share/audio?i=6017035.mp3&d=4ea346c658d0b1d1&u=9448277860&app_name=EVAPP

Esha's new logo and new website

This is a very big day for us at Esha. 

Today, we unveil the new logo and the new website of Esha. 

For the last 2-3 years, Esha has been trying to answer the question - What next? What now? 

The research project we did in 2019 was an eye opener. 

Today, I am glad to share the new logo of Esha: 

The new logo retains Braille as the main communication - the dots on top is Esha in Braille. 

Under that are the three keywords of Esha - Dignity, Empowerment, Enablement. 

I thought it was important to put these in the logo so that we are able to communicate upfront what we stand for. 

The black and white colour scheme to represent the world we stand for, has also been retained. 

The new website of Esha: 

www.eshabraille.org 

As we restart with renewed vigour, we are looking for volunteers, because another thing that remains unchanged is our commitment to being 100% volunteer driven. 

The Esha Summer Project is currently underway. All school students are invited to participate and volunteer from wherever they are - to create an inclusive world. 

Thank you! 

#Gratitude 

Esha Summer Program 2023

 The Esha Summer Program 2023 is here! 

The presentation is here. 

You can also see the slides in order below. 

The link to register is: https://forms.gle/P5hLAd77M3a381kj7

For any questions, please write to us at summers@clabil.org 

How do Blind Schools enable people?

One question that we often hear is - how do blind schools enable people? 

This video, made by Aditya Bhasin, educates us in this heartwarming video of less than 4 minutes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-ZrTDPJR7Q

We recommend that you watch it. 

The school covered in the video is Saksham Trust, but its very illustrative of how most schools function. 

Record for the online audio library

 https://forms.gle/nLQdJXGDwC6jELwt9

So far, we used to take recordings during the Esha Summer Program and during Read Fests at colleges or offices.

But there is a need to create a platform for recording volunteers who want to record from home all year round.

For all such volunteers, we now have the option of registering and starting recording any time.

Esha starts uploading on the Archive.org platform

To give a wider reach to the audio content recorded by our volunteers over a long period of time, we will gradually start uploading our original content (not partner content, just our copyright free audio content that has been recorded as part of our summer program and through our community volunteers) 

You can see our content here: 

https://archive.org/details/@esha_braille

Report on the 2022 Esha Summer Program

The Esha Summer Project 2022 was a happy one in the sense that after 2 years, we reintroduced field work. 

For the last few years, the project management was being done by students. This year, I decided to do the project management myself to interact with the summer volunteers and to understand their working and communication style better, so we may train our next year's PMO volunteers better. 

Here are the observations: 

1. Since this project was going to be managed by a single PM, we decided to cap capacity at 15-20 volunteers only. 

2. We decided that a virtual orientation with all volunteers to help them understand the ethos of Esha was mandatory. If a volunteer does not attend the orientation, they cannot continue in the program. 

3. Like every year, the form had to be closed within 2-3 days. We got 45 applications within 4 days. We usually keep a buffer for about 40% dropout ratio, because students tend to underestimate the professionalism required for this work. Some children were underage. We informed them and looked forward to having them in the program once they were older. 

4. The biggest dropout rate was in the orientation itself. Only 26 children attended the orientation. We held 2 sessions so children could attend at their convenience, and then one more at the request of some parents. 

5. Of the 26 who attended, we gave them assignments as per their choice. The website team had some discussions, but never really delivered anything. Quite a few students started work but did not submit by the deadline date. No reminders were sent, and they were removed from the program. Which was, I think, a good practice, because we never heard from these children again, so a reminder would have been a waste of time for both. 

6. A total of 10 volunteers completed the program and got their certificates. Of these, 3 were selected for the Certificate of Commendation. 

7. We conducted 3 blind walks, recorded 6 audio files, and made an awareness video about Discovering Hands - a special employment and health initiative by blind women. But the bulk of the work was done in research - we collected responses from 700 people through the summer program, which is very impressive. The next stage is report writing and making that report universally available. The audio files have now been uploaded to the online library. 

Overall, it was a satisfying experience and we had some lessons.

Some of the students who dropped out told us that they had applied to more than one summer program and just prioritised their time. i.e., if they got an assignment with a better known NGO, or one that interested them more, they went for it. 

The children who did volunteer with us said that their experience was positive and they enjoyed the experience. 

Next year, I think we should have a more structured feedback mechanism so that we are able to proactively improve the program for the volunteers of the future. 

These are the videos created as part of Summer Program 2022: 

Discovering Hands - Breast Cancer Detection without radiation - YouTube

Esha Sensitisation: Blind Walks of 2022 - YouTube

Discovering Hands - Early Breast Cancer detection - Sehar Jaggi makes a video

Very happy to share this. After 2 years, this year, Esha finally restarted field work on sensitisation and our summer project included Blind walks and information videos. 

One of the most amazing projects in India is early breast cancer detection. Early detection, esp for cancer, can make a world of difference.

Dr. Hoffman discovered, tested, and brought to market a technique that allows early detection of breast cancer in through a non-invasive, zero-radiation diagnostic test. This special technique was brought to India by the NAB Center for Women - because - wait for it - this non-invasive diagnostic test is conducted by VI professionals!

Sehar Jaggi, our volunteer for Summer program 2022, made this lovely awareness video on location - at the NAB Center for Women, Delhi! 

https://youtu.be/GIdPKdxN4ys

This is the first awareness video coming out of Esha after a long time. Do watch! :)

And if you are aware of more such initiatives that we can carry, please do let us know. Just a gentle reminder - our keywords are Dignity, Empowerment, Enablement.

Any project supporting these three keywords are wonderful for us to know about and amplify, in whatever small way we can.