What We Do – RESOURCES FOR THE BLIND, INC.

6May, 2024

Disaster Relief

We knew about 360 blind children who lived in the path of Super-Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) that struck the central Philippines in November of 2013. After the typhoon, we immediately began contacting the families and identified about 60 to 70 who needed emergency shelter assistance. Many were living under tarpaulins or other shelter made of scrap material

Our first efforts were concentrated on getting these families into safe shelters. After making good progress on that, we started a second project to build permanent, more typhoon-resistant homes far about 20 selected families. Three of the selection criteria are: the level of need, ownership of the land, and parent support for the education of the blind.

We have also completed a project to rebuild or repair the Special Education Centers in 11 of the worst hit schools. These Centers cater to the special needs of students with disabilities and made it possible for the children to be included in regular classes. Because of the level of damage, most schools had to be completely rebuilt

We replaced flattened homes with new concrete hollow blocks homes, our hope is that the roofing will not be lifted off by the winds. The rebuilt Special Education Centers are either one or two classrooms, depending on the number of students with disabilities. The Centers serve as Resource 023 for the students and their trained teachers. They are fully furnished, including the special equipment and materials needed by students with visual impairment.

6May, 2024

Housing

The scale of the damage brought by Typhoon Yolanda at the end of 2013 compelled us to extend our hand of assistance in ways we have never done before. Our work is still continuing even a year and a half after disaster. Once the immediate needs of the families were met, we began a house building and house repair program to get the families with blind children into safe shelter.

At the same time, we began partnering with the Department of Education to repair or rebuild the Special Education Centers that made it possible for blind children to go back to school. We also worked to provide livelihood programs for those families that lost their means of livelihood in the storm.

We have adhered to the Build Back Better philosophy in our rebuilding efforts. In this approach, the families of blind children actually find themselves in better housing and schooling situations than what they had before the typhoon. Although the typhoon was a terrible and tragic event, the Lord has found a way to bring some good out of it for the blind children we work with.

Housing Rebuilding

New Homes 19 Repaired Homes 28

Classroom Reconstruction

New Classroom 6 Classroom Repaired 10 Livelihood 20

6May, 2024

All Children Reading

The Improving Reading Scores of children with Blindness and Low Vision in Early Primary Education project is designed to give visually impaired students in Grades 1 to 3 access to age- and level-appropriate textbooks and reading materials in schools in the Philippines. The project also provided schools with access to technological equipment including magnifying software , braille translator software, braille embosser machines, braille display to read text tactually that is typically displayed on a computer monitor, audio player and portable digital magnifiers. Training for teachers and parents of children with visually impairment showed them how to use the materials to improve reading at school and at home.

The project aims to improve access to these resources for students with a range of vision impairments. Historically, the production of reading materials for visually impaired students has taken place in Manila on a small scale. Due to the distribution and logistical challenges that come with working in a nation with made up of more than 7,000 islands, braille in order to read. Certain low vision students would benefit more from large print resources than braille.

The main purpose of the project is to improve the reading proficiency of children with visual impairment by making reading resources accessible to them.
The project aims to accomplish this by;
•   providing technology and training to school teachers in order to provide critical learning materials to students with visual impairment. The technology includes a desktop computer, braille translator software and embosser, an electronic braille display, magnifying software to enlarge text, portable digital audio players, and digital magnifiers;
•   providing reading enhancement materials in accessible formats for children with visual impairment to increase access to a greater variety of reading materials and help the target population read at grade level;
•    providing training and mentoring to teachers handling children with visual impairment for additional strategies and techniques;
  •    improving family engagement in the children’s reading through home visits and workshops to help them understand how to teach the children at home.

6May, 2024

Christian Growth

Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is Christ. Ephesians 4:15

At RBI, Christian Growth has always been at the heart of its activities and programs. Our work does not stop at planting the seeds of the Christian faith but extends to the nurturing of what has been planted. This is why our Christian Growth program has remained an important priority despite the greater challenges of getting it funded compared to our other programs.

Since the beginning, RBI has always promoted the ministry of distributing Scriptures to as many people as we can reach. In our programs’ activities, we try to incorporate the sharing of the Word of God to encourage people with visual impairment. From producing the first Tagalog Bible in braille, RBI has gone a long way in advancing the Bible through adoption of the latest technological advancements. Now we can produce Bibles in different Filipino dialects like Cebuano and Hiligaynon and in formats other than braille, such as large print and digital.

To foster spiritual and social growth among elementary and high school students wit visual impairment, we hold the kids and teens camp every summer.Furthermore, our blind pastors continuously hold weekly Bible studies in schools where there are students with visual impairment. We are extremely gratified that some of these students enroll in Bible colleges after high school for further training to become ministry workers.

What can a blind pastor do?

As our commitment to Bible distribution, RBI’s blind pastors along with other blind pastor-friends from the Manila Blind Church joined the Bible Run organized by the Philippine Bible Society. This advocacy run is a nationwide campaign to raise awareness on the importance or Bible reading and to raise funds for the printing of Bibles to be distributed to underprivileged Filipinos.

6May, 2024

Braille Production

In partnership with the Department of Education (DepEd) we produced 30 percent of the Braille textbooks needed nationwide. The remaining 70 percent was produced by DepEd using the Brailler machine loaned from RBI. We also addressed the dearth of braille reading material by publishing two braille magazines namely, Double Yum and Insight.

We also addressed the dearth of braille reading material by publishing two braille magazines namely, Double Yum and Insight. The former is a magazine for children containing testimonies, Bible stories, letters, tongue twisters, games and others. The Insight is a magazine for adults that contains various stories such as local and international news, technology-related stories, features, sports, poems, book excepts, testimonies, English lessons, and others. All of these are designed to help those with visual impairment to develop their knowledge and skills in various aspects of life.

We also produced a total of 94 new titles in digital audio books, which is better known as DAISY. Digital Accessible Information System stands for Digital Accessible for blind. It makes it possible for blind students to carry their textbooks and other reading material in their pockets.

Where do we get braille papers?

RBI has been importing Braille paper since it started producing materials in Braille twenty years ago. In 2012 we produced over one million pages of braille, all which had to be imported from overseas. Now, a local paper supplier has agreed to invest in a machine that will allow us to purchase braille paper locally.

PROGRAMS

Accessible Media

ACTIVITY

Produced pages of additional Braille reading material for children and adults

Produced new titles of audio books

Provided training and support for schools and other organizations in computerized Braille production

Increased the number of tactile graphics pages included in Braille textbooks and other publications

Target government and non-government organizations and business to provide accessible versions of their printed information.

Enrolled students in the distant learning Braille Literacy or Braille Transcribing courses.

Provide training and technical support to teachers and other organizations in DAISY production.

Provided technical support and training for DAISY production to other organizations.

Bookshare clients in the Philippines – Partnered with Bookshare to provide and expand the online library of books in the Philippines.

Clients, teachers and Librarians who attended Bookshare training.

Provide training in Assistive Technologies – NVDA / JAWS

Promotion of Marrakesh Treaty.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

421,066

66

34

1,285

3

12

75

37

138

95

81

74

5May, 2024

Job Placement

Our Job Placement program was established to help blind adults get decent employment in line with their interest and level of education. It is also designed to dispel hesitations and misconceptions on the employer’s part in hiring persons with visual impairments.

In 2014, we conducted preemployment trainings for 28 visually impaired adults. This training gives them the technical and soft skills needed to find and keep good employment. After the training, we work with the participants to find suitable employment.

We also conducted orientations for 130 employers and Human Resource personnel from different companies. This orientation typically removes the fears and concerns of employers in hiring someone with visual impairment.

A significant accomplishment in 2014 was the forging of a partnership with the Employees Compensation Commission of the Department of Labor and Employment. This agreement uses RBI staff to provide rehabilitation services to workers who become visually impaired or blind as a result of work-related injuries.

What kind of work can a blind person do?

The booming business process and outsourcing industry in the Philippines, including call center work, has led us to focus our job placement for blind persons in work that requires computer skills.

In partnership with IBM and the Overbook School for the Blind in Philadelphia, we were able to provide computer training course to 95 blind high school and college students in 2012. This prepares them well for future work in an industry that is continually in need of qualified workers.

5May, 2024

Counseling

For 2012, RBI provided rehabilitation and counselling services to a total of 260 persons with visual impairment.

We have devised sessions to help blind persons adjust to life and cope with a new challenges that they may encounter as a result of their vision loss. We helped them accept and process their current circumstances through counselling and prayer.

Our counselling services also involved trainings in independent travel and mobility, use of technology to overcome obstacles, and lessons in braille reading and writing. We helped them go back to a normal life and become functional members of the society.

5May, 2024

Advocacy

Many of the obstacles faced by persons who are blind are caused more by other peoples perceptions of what blind people can do rather than the actual limitations of blindness. For example, employers tell us they cant hire a blind person because they don’t have an elevator in their building. In reality, stairs present absolutely no problem to the blind person who is trained on how to use a white cane.

Our goal is to remove these false obstacles that blind people face in education, employment, health care, transportation, and in many other areas. The best way to address these issues is to have one of our blind staff conduct a training or orientation for those involved. We have provided these training to public school administrators, university faculty and administrators, employers, human resource personnel, hotel staff, airline staff, shipping lines, the Admin staff at the House of Representative, banking staff, many government offices, and where ever we have the opportunity.

We are also working in partnership with all the relevant government organizations to help them meet their requirements under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability, which has been ratified by the Philippine government.

5May, 2024

Higher Education

Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning. Proverbs 9:9

In 2015, RBI received a number of complaints about universities and colleges refusing admission to students with visual impairment. The usual reasons given were: a) the teachers were not ready to handle students with visual impairment and b) they did not have the special tools needed to teach them. This is a serious blatant violation of the Magna Carta for Persons with Disability which provides that PWDs must be given full access to quality education, but many academic institutions are still unaware that such a law exists.

To address the issue, Resources for the Blind reached out to administrators of schools and universities in partnership with the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and became more assertive in its drive for inclusion of students with visual impairment in higher education.

In 2015, 308 university administrators and faculty attended the orientation workshop for the inclusion of students with visual impairment. This is an improvement on the level of participation that we had in the past two years.

Based on our latest data, we have already given training to 95 universities where a total of 165 college students with visual impairment are enrolled. Our data also showed some encouraging results as we have twenty students who have been given college scholarships.

5May, 2024

Preschool

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

In human development, the foundation is critical and can spell the difference between meaningful progress or delay in learning. This is the reality for the regular average child, but more so for children who do not have the sight to facilitate gaining knowledge from the environment. So it has become RBI’s thrust to include intervention of children with visual impairment at the earliest age possible to minimize or even avoid the expected developmental delays in their cognitive, communication, motor and social skills. Being able to train early both the child and the parents on how to deal with the disability will yield better results in terms of acquiring academic and life skills that will enable the person and everyone around him to live normally.

This is the essence of RBI’s early intervention and preschool program for children who are blind and with visual impairment. For this year, we reached our milestone of having12 babies enrolled in our Parent & Child program. This is the most number of babies that we have as students since the early intervention program was launched.

Category Archives: What We Do

What can a blind pastor do?

Where do we get braille papers?

What kind of work can a blind person do?