AMMAN — The Higher
Council for The Rights of Persons with Disabilities (HCD), in collaboration
with Basirah initiative, started has started downloading accessible curricula for
the Remedial Loss Program on the HCD’s website for those with visual
impairments.
اضافة اعلان
Ghadeer Al-Hares, assistant
secretary general for technical affairs at the HCD, said in a phone interview
with
Jordan News that the HCD has begun to download the curricula and
has shared it on its website.
“In coordination with
the council, some female volunteers who work at Basirah have transferred such
curricula into audio clips,” Hares added.
“We realized the need
for recording school subjects in a simple, smooth, and attractive way, so as
students can be able to save them and refer to them whenever they want,” Hares
said.
Hares noted that such
recordings are not just about reading the subject to visually impaired
students, but rather providing them with the simplified explanation of some
terms.
She said that during the
COVID-19 pandemic, the HCD and Basirah provided visually impaired students from
grade one to grade ten with audio versions of their school books.
“The HCD is developing
the ‘Istiqlaleya’ application, through which students can download all school
subjects as well as a group of attached stories,” Hares added.
“The application will
have a feature that enables students to continue listening from where they left
off, so that they will not have to listen to the whole lesson all over again,”
she said.
Hares stressed that
this process aims to give students with visual impairment and disabilities
access to their lessons no matter where they are.
“The recording process is still in progress. …
each recorded subject undergoes quality control to check the programs, audio
outputs, and the articulation of sound,” she added.
Sura Khuzai, the founder
of the Basirah Voluntary Initiative for Supporting Visually Impaired and Blind
Children, told
Jordan News over the phone that the initiative works to
help people with visual impairments aged 3 to 16 by providing them with
high-quality recordings that include school curricula and entertaining stories.
“It all started in
2018, when my son recorded some stories and read them to a group of students at
a nursery for blind children as a part of his personal school project,” Khuzai
added.
Khuzai said that this
inspired her to start the Basirah initiative since she “was surprised” that
there were no recorded school curricula for visually impaired students.
“If blind students
have no audio books, this means that they have no curriculum,” she added.
“The
Ministry of Education’s website provides students with digital curriculum. … but there are
no audio books,” she said.
“We reached out the
HCD, which has immediately adopted our completely voluntary initiative by
providing us with the platform, i.e. their website so that we can upload our
recordings on it. Therefore, the council serves as an umbrella for Basirah,”
she said.
“We now have a huge
audio library containing all the school subjects from the first to the 10th
grade,” Khuzai added.
She said that their
role does not replace that of a teacher; but has to do with the books
themselves.
“We play the role of
the book; we do not explain the lesson but rather read it as is,” Khuzai added.
Riham Younis,
coordinator at Basirah, told
Jordan News that she is responsible for
coordinating the volunteers, dividing the subjects and reviewing the
recordings. She also trains new volunteers, makes the curricula and stories
available, records subjects, and follows up with students’ mothers and teachers.
“I have the knowledge
and the ability to help people around me, so instead of doing nothing, I feel
it is my duty to help my community and it is the least I can do,” Younis said.
“I hope that our work
will grow, and that other initiatives will be launched so that we can
collaborate with them, because one hand cannot clap,” she added.
For his part, Hashem
Al-Hamaideh, a 12-year-old visually impaired student, said in an interview with
Jordan News that he has been benefitting from Basirah for around a year.
“Through Basirah, I
can repeat recorded subjects after they are finished, and quickly refer to
texts that should be memorized. In English subjects, Basirah helps me with the
accent and pronunciation,” Hamaideh added.
“I advise people and visually
impaired students to listen to these recordings because they are very useful,”
he said.
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