Eight-year-old Pilla Mokshasree, a Class II student, squeals in delight as she traces her fingers to visualise one of the world’s most beautiful and iconic monuments. She had heard stories about the Taj Mahal from her class teacher and in her mind, had painted a picture of the monument. “This is grand and has so many contours!” says Mokshasree, a student of the Government Residential School for Visually Challenged Girls at Sagarnagar.
Her classmate Kommu Swethe has a smile on her face as she feels the shapes of the continents and countries with Braille labels. The girls recently got their first batch of tactile books from book club Pick A Book (PAB) which celebrated its third anniversary.
The book club, that has a presence in five countries, is celebrating its third anniversary on the theme Reading For All. The club was founded by KVT Ramesh and Ragulan Tharmakulasingam with an aim to encourage the habit of reading and in ths process, hone public-speaking, communication and presentation skills.
“We found that there was a dire need for support for individuals with visual impairment. The main gap was limited availability of resources,” says M Tanuja, head of operations, PAB Global. She collaborated with Delhi-based Saksham Trust to source a batch of tactile books on various topics and conducted an interactive session for the students of Government Residential School for Visually Challenged Girls.
The educational institution, which is Andhra Pradesh’s only residential school for visually challenged girl children, has about 60 students.
“Tactile books are a great way to foster development of literacy skills for a visually impaired child and also assists in developing concepts and honing sensory efficiency skills,” says Tanuja. According to her, one of the challenges most schools face is sourcing the books, that involves high production and shipping costs.
“Tactile books are very useful for beginners. Earlier, the books used to be handmade and involved long processes and could be not produced in bulk. With printed tactile books that started about six years ago, a variety of topics are available now,” says Rummi K Seth, co-founder of Saksham Trust. Saksham gets the tactile books from Raised Lines Foundation.
India has nearly five million visually impaired people as per the 2011 census. “A typical Braille textbook consists of only text made accessible using Braille without diagrams and pictures. The issue is that a few visually impaired children are able to pursue subjects like Science, Maths in higher studies. Tactile books and graphics make a significant difference in improving quality of education,” says principal M Maheshwara Reddy.
