Technology has gifted both good and bad to the society. The outcome can be decided by the path which we choose. And here is a person who chose best part of technology and making use of it to make visually challenged folks as better independent individuals.
For many, from birth, disability is part and parcel of visually challenged people. But to make these individuals more equipped, M P Shivaprakash from Divyajyothi Charitable Trust, has started a Braille library, a first of its kind in the city. A desire to help visually challenged people followed by constant hard work has got the structure of Braille library up in Gokulam.
“There were no Braille books available when I was a student. Whether they liked it or not I used to make others read for me. Lack of availability of technology and knowledge about it made me face ups and downs in the process of learning. But when I learnt about the technology and its advantages to mankind, especially to visually challenged people I decided to make use of technology to make visually challenged folks more learned ones,” said Shivaprakash.
Even in the era of information there is dearth of information for visually challenged people. In order to overcome this problem and to cater to the needs of the visually challenged students, the Braille library has come up.
Braille library has about 500 books which helps one to learn academic aspects along with general books like novels, story books, magazines, Kannada and English grammar books etc. Academic books in Braille are available for the students of first PUC to post graduation. Visually challenged folks can either refer to those books in the library or can borrow them to study on their own.
Along with Braille library the trust is running computer classes for visually challenged. Vocational training computer classes for adults and skill development classes for kids below 16 years are conducted. Spoken English classes, Braille teaching classes, yoga classes, cultural events and sports events are conducted in the trust for the benefit of visually challenged folks.
Suffering with disability has made Shivaprakash strong and explore new things, look into everything not with the vision of eye but with the vision of mind. The pain of disability has made him think about the suffering which people like him undergo in their lives.
The pain felt by him made him work for the betterment of visually challenged people. But lack of economic support to buy equipments, machineries and softwares, make us less competent, said Shivaprakash with bitterness.