Delhi University’s Kirori Mal College launched an initiative for the welfare of the blind students recently. In a special ceremony that was held on Thursday in the Academic Auditorium of the college campus various assistive devices like laptops, electronic (Refreshable) braille display, daisy players and tablets were distributed to the visually-impaired undergraduate students of the college.
Also, under the initiative titled Aarohan done in collaboration with an NGO called Saksham, the college will provide various assistance devices to students who are visually-challenged or with low vision. Besides, the students will also be mentored, guided, counselled and trained on how to use these devices. A total of 40 blind students are there, including 30 undergraduate students, and a quick survey was conducted among them too.
Someshwar Sati, coordinator of Centre for Disability Research and Training, said. “In the survey, one of the questions asked was about which device would be needed by them and another one was which they actually need would be provided. Also, understanding from our perspective, we thought that all of them would require a basic level of laptop. Interestingly, not even 50 per cent (half of the students} of the students wanted laptops to study or work. Only forty-five per cent wanted laptops to pursue education, 40 per cent wanted a daisy player (digital recorders), 10 per cent wanted Braille display and those with low vision wanted a tablet,” Sati added.