THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
Amway India, one of the country’s leading FMCG direct selling companies, commemorated the International White Cane Day for the 20 th consecutive year. With the objective to educate and encourage students about the importance of safe and independent mobility, Amway India in association with National Association for the Blind (NAB), Kerala, distributed over 150 smart white canes to the visually impaired. In the wake of the ongoing pandemic, as people stay home and embrace social distancing, a team from NAB visited the residence of the visually impaired individuals and personally handed over the white cane along with providing training on its usage.
Commenting on the initiative, GS. Cheema, Senior Vice President, North & South, Amway India said, “India is home to around 4.8 million of the world’s visually impaired population . While the pandemic has affected everyone, it has been particularly challenging for the visually impaired people considering lack of on ground resources. In line with our vision of helping people live better, healthier lives; we, at Amway, have been working towards the welfare of visually impaired for over two decades. Our extensive experience through our ‘National Project for the Visually Impaired’ has made us cognizant of their inherent resilience. This has further driven us to provide more avenues for their education and empowerment.”
Talking on the occasion, Prof. John Kurian, President, National Association for the Blind, Kerala, said, “White cane is the symbol of independence and confidence for the visually impaired. Hence, it is important to educate the visually impaired students on the effective use of the white cane at an early stage. Amway has been one of the prominent companies in the country and has played a pivotal role in supporting communities. We are extremely proud to be associated with Amway India and are thankful to them for extending their continuous support towards this noble cause.”
Amway, under the National Project for the Visually Impaired, has undertaken various initiatives to support the cause of visually impaired including:
Amway has supported more than 85,000 visually impaired children with Braille textbooks across 12 States.
Amway has been providing computer training to the visually impaired since 2008 and has set up 15 computer centers across the country. A total of 1000 visually impaired individuals are getting benefited at the Amway supported computer centers annually.
Amway has also set-up 33 audio/braille libraries across India; launched a travel and tourism course in Kolkata; set-up a BPO in Madurai; set-up music academies for the visually impaired in Chandigarh, Raipur and Guwahati.
Amway has supported the program digitizing class XII educational material for National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS), as well as select graduation and post-graduation educational material for Delhi University, Mumbai University and Hyderabad/EFLU University, which is helping different abled especially visually impaired students across the country.
Amway’s commitment to educate the visually impaired, led Amway to launch an Android- based application ‘Accessible Reader’, which leverages available text-to-speech engines and makes it convenient for the visually impaired to read digital documents.
