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)