Youth Connect VI

About 314 million people are visually impaired worldwide. 45 million of them are blind. About 87% of the world’s visually impaired live in developing countries. One out of every three blind people in the world - an estimated 15 million blind people, live in India. A needs assessment done of youth with Visual Impairement showed their aspirations were different from other disabilities. Many of them wanted to enrol in professional courses do their doctorate studies or try for government jobs . Also the trainings for VI are technology driven. Hence this Learning Centre for Visual Impairment was set up, as a beginning in Delhi and Hyderabad. Our Delhi partner is Blind Relief Association (BRA) The Centers work at different levels

• 1. Helps youth with visual impairment fulfil their aspirations for enrolling in higher education or professional courses by training them in English communication skills & computers with access to appropriate technologies.
• 2. Sensitizing companies about the ability in this new talent pool.
• 3.Coaching them for government jobs

Generic skills taught are English communication, Jaws/NVDA,soft skills and life skills. Additionally, for government/bank jobs coaching is done in specific subjects like mathematics & reasoning, banking etc. Two other programs with impact are Paheli, which helps school dropouts pass 10th and 12th examination and Saathi which is a mentorship program with HSBC

Recently, our team has been supporting the masseurs trained at BRA to find up market places to offer their services, both in companies and special gatherings. An entrepreneurial effort is a bakery with visually impaired trainees who also have found a market to consume their range of biscuits made