[Dtb-talk] Producing the first daisy books at UCC Ghana

[David Andrews]

>FYI:




>Hi Friends,
>
>Good Morning from Julius in Kerala India.
>I am extremely greatful to share with you an initiative or my vision
>to produce daisy books for the visually impaired people before I
>return to Ghana on the 15, December 2009.
>As you may be aware, our program at the International Institute for
>Social Entreprenuers is slowly coming to an end.
>During my one year studies in India, I have found daisy books as very
>useful learning material for visually impaired students in any
>accademic institution.
>
>I am currently the adaptive computer instructor for the visually
>impaired students at the university of Cape Coast Ghana. We currently
>have 40 visually impaired students pursuing various programmes at this
>  university.
>   At the university of Cape Coast where I work, we have basic
>infrastructure like ferniture, Rooms, electricity,  eight permanent
>staff, 10 computers and internet service. These basic materials could
>enable us start our daisy production in the future.
>
>I would like to provide you with some background information about
>some problems faced by visually impaired persons in Ghana.
>
>In Ghana, We have three universities which admit visually impaired
>students to pursue their four years degree program. These includes the
>university of Legon, University of Winiba and the University of Cape
>Coast.
>In addition, there are four senior high schools and training colleges
>in Ghana which intigrates visually impaired students to study in this
>institutions.
>
>     We have two main blind schools which admits blind and partially
>sighted persons to acquire primary education and prepare these
>students to be intigrated in to the senior high schools.
>
>I can clearly confirm to you that, non of these learning institutions
>have daisy books for visually impaired students to use. These students
>rely mostly on their sighted friends to either record on tapes or read
>their text books for them.
>  The problems associated with this recordings are that, the tapes do
>not last much longer, you can loose them at any time and it is very
>difficult to have some words spell out for them.
>
>This is the very reason why I would like to bring to your notice the
>establishment of daisy book production to solve common problems faced
>by visually impaired persons in their studies. I should also admit
>that, I learnt about daisy books during my one year studies in Kerala
>India.
>I discussed this program with the chief Librarian of our university
>Mr. Clement Mensah. We have both developed a project proposal and a
>budget to start the production of Daisy books in our library June
>2010.
>
>Since this program is the first of its kind to be set up in Ghana and
>in the whole of West Africa. We will require a lot of effort, funds,
>resources, software, materials,   and training workshop to help us set
>up and produce these daisy books for the visually impaired students of
>the University of Cape Coast Ghana in June 2010.
>
>  I would therefore like to make this initiative known to all of you on
>this network. We will collabarate with any one of you who will be
>interested  to assist us to start the production of daisy books for
>visually impaired persons in the university of Cape Coast Ghana.
>Wishing you all the best.
>
>With lot of love,
>--
>Julius Kwasi Braimah
>Computer Instructor.
>University of Cape Coast
>Ghana West Africa.
><julius.vision at gmail.com>
><julius.training at gmail.com>
><www.juliusvision.com