New hope for visually challenged

BANGALORE: Bangalore University (BU) distributed Braille textbooks and audio CDs to 150 visually challenged students from 25 colleges at a programme here on Saturday. Vice-Chancellor Dr N Prabhu Dev personally gave Braille textbooks to some of the visually-challenged undergraduate students. Speaking on the occasion, he appealed to parents, corporate houses and NGOs to come forward to help the visually challenged. “Parents should encourage visually-challenged students to take up higher education. Also, corporate companies and NGOs should  facilitate more investment on information and communication technologies (ICT) to help them lead a normal life,” he said. BU derived this idea when Shilpa S, a visually- challenged BCom student of VVN Degree College, V V Puram, went crying one day to her mentor and teacher Dr Prasanna Udupikar, who is also a convener of BU’s Braille Research In an effort to help her, Dr Udupikar recorded all Commerce textbooks on to a cassette in her own voice. “Dr Udupikar narrated this to me, and that’s when I decided to do something,” said Prabhu Dev. Shilpa, who received braille textbooks and audio CDs,   resources, I was always dependent someone to read for me. Now, with this initiative, I feel independent.” The university also felicitated six visually-challenged  teachers.