WOMEN WITH WINGS

Through   this project, we attempt to provide access to education for girls and women with visual impairment, who are closeted within the four walls of their home, in rural south India.  Bringing them out, providing them to hands on training in access technology in all its latest forms, laws and legislation self defense, and personal hygiene along with independent movement and financial independence is our solution, to bring   blind women to the forefront.   We are attempting to solve the problem, of illiteracy and complete dependence and deprivation among blind women in rural south India.  This model will serve as a model globally for others to adopt exclusively for women.  

India is home to almost 15 percent of the world’s disabled people, many of whom are women.  Here we concentrate on the plight of blind women, who are deprived of any proper access to education, training and even proper hygiene. This is mainly due to the fact that their guardians deprive them of all rights, they are not allowed to participate in family decisions and   are completely shut off from their own family members, some of them are even subjected to domestic violence from their parents, brothers and even spouse.  They are unable to complain, as they do not have access to the outside world. This is due to lack of mobility, on account of their disability and also fear that they will not be accepted back home and that   they will not have a place to go. Many women are of the opinion, that as they are women that in itself is a challenge, and being a woman with a disability is a complete curse. This has been drilled in to their minds.  This challenge exists in many parts of India and   we as an organization Jyothirgamaya Foundation concentrate on rural southern India

The project women with wings, an offshoot of Jyothirgamaya Foundation, an organization working towards empowerment of persons with visual impairment, attempts to bring women with visual impairment out of their confinements, where they are tucked away especially those in rural tribal areas of southern India. Most of these women are deprived even   basic amenities.  Our solution is to  bring them out,  empower them, instil in them self confidence, through one to one counselling and  therapy if  needed,   hands on training in  access technology,  which include the use of smart phone and computers, the use of banking applications for financial independence,  language, interpersonal skills, vocational skills,  and  also  personal hygiene. They shall be taught about laws and legislations concerning them, and also self-defence and independent movement. All these skill training over a period of four months in a residential setting shall set the wheels in motion for blind women to come out to the forefront of society.  Employment opportunities shall be provided according to potential and vocational skill training also. We shall also   lead them to start their own self help groups, and interconnected networks. This model shall then be carried on to more and more women, through the participants themselves.

The target audience will be women and girls with visual impairment in rural southern India. The solution is to provide them with ample access to education, technology, mobility, financial independence, vocational skills, and further on employment.  All women trained under the women with wings project, shall be either placed in suitable employment, or shall be led on towards other opportunities which will help them according to their specific needs and potentials.  Each woman’s needs shall be addressed. Through technology new doors shall be open to them in all respects. They will have livelihood in the field they wish to pursue.

As I said my target population is visually impaired girls and women and training them in necessary skills is my goal. The major problem that we face is the unawareness of parents of those young blind girls. Due to so many environmental and financial concerns they still refuse to send their daughters for the training. The solution that we offer to this is conducting more sensitisation sessions for the parents and for the public to encourage the participation of their daughter/sister/friends  in order to empower.

My project women with wings, is a unique solution in itself. The name in itself suggests the flight of women in to a new world of independence.   The project attempts to bring blind women out of the four walls to which they are confined, giving them complete independence through a wide range of new technologies, learning, and networking and employment opportunities.  There are many organizations who   work for the education and empowerment of women, but very few for the empowerment, and independence of women with disabilities, especially in rural southern India.

 I know of organization, which provides food shelter and even a small meagre livelihood to women with disabilities. But behind the closed doors of these organizations women are either being poorly paid, or exploited in various ways. They are chained to the boundaries, and not allowed to explore the outside world.  Our project offers them training, after which  they will be guided towards suitable employment, or  further training according to their potential, and  also  enabled to start their own self help groups. 

They shall by no means be chained to our establishment, and it is unique in the way, that they themselves shall be used as model examples to empower and educate similar women, of their own target audience.

Technology is a huge milestone in the lives of women with disabilities, especially in the lives of blind women. It acts as a door to the outside world for them, a key to new knowledge.  People with visual impairment, use screen reading software such as Jaws, that is job access with speech, NVDA, that is non visual desktop application,  to use a computer, and talkback, or  voice over  to use a smart phone. All these are called access technologies. A screen reader is software, which provides speech output of whatever is being displayed on the screen. 

This helps the person with visual impairment, to use a computer, and a Smartphone, and other assistive devices with the utmost ease and be at par with their sighted counterparts.  Our women and girls shall be trained in the use of this technology, so that they can have access to books, formal education, open schooling if possible, as well as social media, banking applications, entertainment, and much more.

  A hands on computer course shall pave the way for their suitable employment and further education. In this way they completely depend upon technology for empowerment, other than the vocational and other skills being taught to them. Technology shall play a huge role in making blind women literate.

Our solution uses assistive technology which is already widely used and accepted all over the world for persons with disabilities.  People with visual impairment use a screen reader that is software which provides speech output of whatever is displayed on the screen. 

This indeed is a widely used technology, and is used by people with visual, as well as with cognitive disabilities. This is not a new technology; it has been used since the early nineties. It is used by blind people across the globe.  It is the use of these   technologies that we aim to teach and empower our women.

Empower and train is my   theory of change. I am a woman with a disability, and I faced the challenges of atrocities and marginalisation, and there being absolutely no escape from it. I would like to impact my target audience, who are women and girls with visual impairment, through providing them access to education and independence.

 I believe that if ten women in one community are educated, they can stand as role model examples to other women, and impart similar empowerment trainings within their communities. We plan to travel from village to village in search of rural blind women and girls, who are being denied their basic rights, and empower them. This will impact their lives in a big way, and will pave the way for their employment, and further development.  On interviewing many young girls and women in the course of my rehabilitation work, I found out that girls and women have the most challenging tasks to attain simple education, and access   to any kind of information. I know a girl who was sent to an organization; however who returned home exploited in many ways. It is this fear that grips the guardians and forbids them from sending them towards any progress.

 Also the fact is that many wish for women and girls to stay under shackles and obey the men in the family. They fear that education, and access to allot of information will make them rebels, and this poses a challenge to them. Many women with disabilities I know are even used as sources of income to their families, either through sexual exploitation, or hard labour. Many are even given government benefits, but are not even aware of them, and these benefits are used by the families. 

My solution offers these women access to all rights, laws, and benefits, so that they can protect themselves from being further exploited, and can also enjoy a livelihood and their own free will. I feel I will be able to impact many women, and lead them to progress through my theory empower and train. 

The current number of blind girls and women we are serving per month=10

The number of girls we will serve for one year=120 

 The number of girls we will serve in the next five years=500 to 600 approximately

Within the next  five years, I look to transfer atleast  one thousand rural blind women within southern India, through   home training and intervention as the first step, residential training as the second step, and  turning each batch of women in to successful examples, and gearing them up to train  more and more women within their circles. In this way I shall be able to achieve my target goal within the next five years. Follow-ups shall also be conducted.

In the next year- We have to face problems marketing barriers for our training program. Since we are going to do it in a large scale (in terms of number of participants, duration of the program) which will be a big challenge and barrier for us.

In the coming five years- Introduction of new assistive devices for the blind in the coming year and training them in those modern devices will be challenging.

Barrier in marketing: We will approach local media, newspapers, news channels  and other possible resources for advertisement about our project. Also we will collect the database form the district rehabilitation office which will make us an easy path in finding the participants those who are confined within the four walls.

Barrier in technology: To overcome this we will train educators and to be on par with the developing technological devices for the blind, so that teachers can teach the blind participants with more confidence and the students will have a clear knowledge of the new assistive devices developed for them.

Nature of staffs= 7+2+2 (all full time faculties)

We have a total of 7 members in teaching team.

Apart from that we will be having two volunteers for assisting purposes. Also we have two non teaching staffs one as hostel incharge and other as maid.

I am the founder of this organization. I am visually impaired, woman, and a special educator.  I have gone through   similar challenges, of not being able to access my freedom, rights, despite being from an educated family. It took me a long time to stand up for my rights, and stand up for my freedom as a woman with a disability. I then realized that if I am going through these challenges, then  my  fellow blind sisters, who are  from illiterate rural backgrounds would  be  facing much  bigger challenges in even having access to a basic education. 

I was thrown out of the class   at a young age, due to my disability, and was for bayed from travel alone due to being a girl with a disability. My team consists of four special educators, all well-versed in access technology, and all women. They are not all with disabilities, but are well-versed in the field of rehabilitation, social sciences, and special education.  One of my team members has completed masters in social work, and doing her Ph.D on the challenges of unmarried women with visual impairment, and their psychosocial implications.

 We  feel that we are in a position to provide education to  women with visual impairment, as we ourselves are all Indian women, who have faced  a wide range of challenges on account of being  women and girls.  

We partner with mobility international USA, an organization working for empowerment of women leaders with disabilities. They impart trainings to leaders who are women with disabilities.

 I have attended the wild training programme, and   work with them,  in terms of resources, and  learning  modules.  I am also in partnership with Cragmagaw, an organization which provides self-defence training to women and girls. 

I am running a non for profit organization which works purely on rehabilitation and education of persons with visual impairment.  Women with wings, is a project which focuses on providing access to education, training and technology for women with visual impairment.  We rely on funding from donor agencies, grants, prize funding and individual donations.

Our target audience requires our services, so as to pave the way for their suitable employment. Through our trainings, they can have ample access to various forms of access technology, applications, social media, reproductive health, rights laws and even vocational skill training. The vocational skill training is a business model which the participants will carry with them, and further pursue in order to attain their own personal livelihood.

We will be bringing money to fund our free services through grants, prize funding, and individual donations. We are an existing charitable trust.

We are applying to solve with an aim of fulfilling our goal, of providing access to education to at least one thousand visually impaired women within the next five years.  Our team feels, that solve is dedicated to its cause of providing access to proper and quality education to women and girls. Our aim and vision is in line with solving, as we aim to provide access to education for women with visual impairment.  

There are many blind  girls and women out there,  who  are bright  and who are yearning for a chance to get their hands on the right resources which they can use to  flap their wings and fly, like any other person, but can’t due to  inaccessibility, and many other social barriers.

Our partnership goals, is to   generate funding resources in order to make our dream in to a reality, to gain expertise through the solve programme, to  connect with  similar organizations whose vision is in line with ours.

We would like to partner with MIT faculty, solve members, and organizations working with women with disabilities.

Since we are a pinoeering team working towards the empowerment of blind girls and women in terms of education and technological training and we have made remarkable changes in this field we feel we are qualified for this prize.

Using this prize money our team will spread its wings across northern tribal part of India and concentrate more on technological training for the blind women  and girls who are confined within the four walls.