National Federation of the Blind Maharashtra (NFBM)

Supported by: Wipro Cares

National Federation of the Blind Maharashtra (NFBM)

About the organization

The mission of this organization is to improve the quality of life of its visually impaired beneficiaries and to lead them to a path of financial independence. This objective is being relentlessly pursued through all our projects, which are implemented across the state of Maharashtra.

Location

NFBM works across the state of Maharashtra.

Program updates

The academic year 2022-23 was a year in which the organization witnessed the normalization of all its projects. The key highlights of the current financial year regarding the objectives of NFBM are as follows:

• The setting up and formal starting of the NFBM skill development center.
• The continuation of the construction of the state-of-the-art hostel building at the NFBM Career Orientated Educational Campus for the blind at Alandi Pune.
• Partial completion of a welcome home for the elderly at Nasik.
• The launch of ‘Inspiration 2022,’ a national-level young women’s conference that was conducted to enlighten 100 visually impaired participants from junior and senior colleges in career and self-employment opportunities.
• The Wipro-supported projects which are being implemented by the NFBM Jagriti school for blind girls at Alandi Pune Witnessed the beginning of offline traditional classroom learning, making it easier for our faculty members to innovate while teaching.
• The conversational English classes supported by the Wipro Foundation were resumed offline, and all the 100 beneficiaries of our school were enrolled for this module throughout the year.

With respect to the last point, it is important to add that English classes were continued with a focus on making all our beneficiaries comfortable with the English language and training them to converse flawlessly during this year. Several unique initiatives were taken by our trainers to make learning fun. For instance, they relied on games like Scrabble, English learning podcasts, narrative stories, and devices like Alexa and Google Home.

To introduce some elements of healthy competition our faculty members also conducted inter-class spell bee competitions, English braille reading and writing competitions, and debates and elocution competitions throughout the year. The impact of the implementation of these activities is being felt by an improved academic performance in English and the confidence with which our high school students are conducting programs in English as anchors.

During this year NFBM continued to receive the support of the Wipro Foundation for running the IT literacy program conducted by the Abilities Institute of IT Management, Education and Research Project (AIMER). This has proved to be one of the most impactful activities. The 100 beneficiaries of our institution who were enrolled in this program are becoming increasingly familiar with computers. The primary students have progressed to a level where they are familiar with the parts of the computer including the keyboard and have started opening word files and are beginning to learn typing skills.

Middle school students are comfortable with computer typing and can produce paragraphs or lessons on the computer. This is also helping them to improve their spelling skills. They have also started an orientation on the use of applications like Skype and Zoom to attend online classes. High school students can surf the net and are also comfortable using online training platforms. Some of them have also progressed to a level where they can send emails and can also use applications like Sugamya Pustakalaya which is a national library of audiobooks that is freely available on the internet. The basics of Excel and PowerPoint have also been taught to the students.

The life skill training program, or training in orientation and mobility, which is available for all students from the first standard to the tenth is also progressing at a fast pace. From being orientated to identifying directions from sound, the older students have now progressed to learning the use of navigation devices and canes with their knowledge of various techniques of safe mobility. Training in archery and the use of a treadmill in learning how to walk straight are also showing great results concerning the confidence level of our students.