[nfbwatlk] FW: [Wcb-l] new call center to only employe blind people

[Mary Ellen]

Great news for the blind people getting jobs -- provided their wages are on
par with the wages of sighted people doing similar work there.


-----Original Message-----
From: nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfbwatlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Alco Canfield
Sent: October 16, 2009 6:13 PM
To: nfbwatlk at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nfbwatlk] FW: [Wcb-l] new call center to only employe blind people




-----Original Message-----
From: Glenn McCully <glennmccully at comcast.net>
Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 2:38 PM
To: wcb-l at wcbinfo.org
Subject: [Wcb-l] new call center to only employe blind people


Philippine call center to employ blind people only 
GMANews.TV - Friday, October 16
Next week, the Philippines will open its first ever call center that only
employs blind persons, a milestone in the struggle of disabled people to
cross the digital divide. With eight training rooms and three desks
dedicated for outbound calls, the call center facility will be equipped with
adaptive hardware and software customized to the needs and abilities of the
blind. Six totally blind, low vision and sighted graduates are currently
being trained as trainors in Taipei, Taiwan, the headquarters of the the
Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Digital Opportunity Center (ADOC).
ADOC provided funds for the facility, a project of the Adaptive Technology
for Rehabilitation, Integration, and Empowerment of the Visually Impaired
(ATRIEV) Inc. The six trainors all came from ATRIEV, an organization that
pioneered computer training for the blind in the country, the Resources for
the Blind, National Council on Disability Affairs, Philippine National
School for the Blind, and the Department of Education. The facility's
customized outbound call center software and refreshable Braille display as
hardware will allow totally blind individuals to provide customer assistance
while listening to the client on the phone and reading the responses in
Braille. With the technology, the blind will hopefully gain the same speed
and efficiency as the sighted call center agent, ATRIEV said. ATRIEV has
provided IT-related training for the blind for the last 15 years, with the
use of a screen reader - a software application that translates text to
speech - and a screen magnification software. ATRIEV also provides
on-the-job training in voicemail transcription to its qualified IT-related
training graduates, in partnership with Gallop IT Solutions, a local
transcription company. The launching ceremony for the project will be held
on October 20 ATRIEV's Training Center for the Blind in Quezon City. The
project is expected to be presented at the APEC Conference to be held in
Singapore in November 2009. - GMANews.TV