Audio Library with 5000 Books in 15 Languages Brings Joy to Those Who Cannot See or Read
Nidhi Arora believes that books and knowledge
should be available for everyone to access – be they visually impaired people
or those who cannot read. She started an online audio library and is now taking
it door to door, teaching people how to use it.
In a school for visually impaired children in
Gurugram, over 30 kids are sitting around a table that has a set of speakers
placed on it. They are all concentrating hard on following a story from the
captivating Akbar-Birbal tales, narrated in Hindi on an audio book. Watch
closely and their expressions change as the story is played – there is
laughter, concern, anticipation, curiosity, and so much more. But most of all,
there is the unparalleled happiness of listening to a story they love.
This amazing session was made possible by CLABIL (Central Library of Audio Books in Indian Languages), a project started with the aim of making audio books available to the visually impaired and also to people who cannot read.
A Gurugram-based NGO named Esha – People for the Blind,
has made the entire CLABIL content available online and it can be downloaded by
anyone. “We usually equate literacy with education and that, according to me,
is not right. It is unfortunate that a person needs to be literate to access
many of the knowledge resources available today, and also that most of them are
in English. That is why I started CLABIL to make knowledge available to every
citizen of India – especially the population that does not speak English, has
very slow internet connection, is not literate or English literate, etc.,” says
Nidhi Arora, who started Esha in January 2005, and then came up with CLABIL in
2010.
I have been working in this field since 1994.
I was very passionate about making Braille books and started with that. Then in
2005, I started Esha as a separate initiative for the production of Braille
enabled visiting cards,” says the 39-year-old.
CLABIL is both web and app based. Users can access the library with the help of an app named Suno, and also on the browsers of their smartphones, tablets or desktops.
Today, the online library has 5,014 files in
15 languages – including Hindi, Oriya, Bengali, Punjabi, and English.
Currently, the app is limited to Hindi files only. Suno allows users to
download and store the audiobooks on their phones or tablets. They can start
listening within seconds of starting the downloads and don’t need to wait for
them to finish. Once the books have been downloaded, they can listen to them
even without internet connections. The content is either literature or
knowledge-based, and is curated by Nidhi. Some of the recordings include works
by Premchand, Kabir and folk stories from different parts of India. The Oriya
academic content has quizzes in English and stories in Bengali too. CLABIL does
not have any adult or entertainment-related content.
Nidhi has a large volunteer base across the
country – people who are happy to contribute and help her with the recordings.
She recently conducted the Esha summer project, inviting volunteers, especially
students, to utilize their vacation time and record stories while sitting in
the comfort of their homes.
Esha also organizes read fests in schools and offices, asking people to spend some time recording books.
“It was great when one of my friends informed me that her
daughter was very excited to learn her reading would be enjoyed by many people
across the country and help them learn as well. She was personally motivated to
record a story,” says Nidhi.
Esha has also started a CLABIL outreach
programme to take the library directly to the beneficiaries. As a part of this,
interns and volunteers go to different places in rural India, underprivileged
urban areas, blind schools, etc., to inform users that this resource is
available and can be used by anyone.
Through this program, Esha has reached 1,200
people this year, and the members target reaching 10,000 people. “When we go to
our beneficiaries, we don’t just introduce them to the technology and walk
away. We hand-hold them throughout the process with three to five visits. We
slowly teach people how to gain access to the content with just a few clicks
and we take their feedback too,” says Nidhi.
Other than the library, Esha works on two more verticals:
• Employment: The
NGO takes orders for Braille enabled visiting cards from organizations and
individuals. These are standard visiting cards with the name of the person
embossed in Braille, and are made by blind professionals. Whatever money Esha
makes through these cards, is sent directly to the professionals.
• General public sensitizing:
Under this vertical, Esha sensitizes the general public towards the needs of
the disabled. “In these sessions, I find that people are not insensitive but
they don’t know how to be inclusive. We help them understand disabilities
better with the help of open Braille sessions, blind walks, etc.,” says Nidhi.
After graduating from IIM Kolkata in 2001, Nidhi worked in the corporate sector before quitting in December 2015 to focus more on CLABIL. The volunteers in her team have parallel corporate careers.
While she used to put in all the required
funds from her own pocket initially, she received some corporate funding this
year to take the outreach work ahead.
“Esha made me financially independent. My
family of four has three visually disabled people and my father is no more.
With money from Esha, I was able to get my sister married and also earn enough
to make a house for my family. I financed my own marriage with the money I
earned through Esha as well,” says K N Chandrasekar, who makes Braille cards
for Esha
“Other than Chandrasekar, the story of my
domestic help always stays with me. She is not literate, but she has put her
daughter in school and wants her to study. One day she told me that she wants
to teach her daughter. I installed all the CLABIL content in the SD card of her
phone and asked her to listen to it. The power of an illiterate parent to teach
her daughter shook me from the core, and I was deeply touched. It is stories
like these that motivate me to move forward,” concludes Nidhi.
Source
| http://www.thebetterindia.com/56802/library-for-audio-books-india-clabil/
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior
Manager @ Library
Khaitan
& Co
Best
Paper Award | Received the Best Paper Award at TIFR-BOSLA National Conference on
Future Librarianship: Innovation for Excellence (NCFL 2016) on April 23,
2016. The title of the paper is “Removing
Barriers to Literacy: Marrakesh VIP Treaty”
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