Wow, the trip is almost over, can you believe it??

I haven't posted in a little while, we've been going at warp speed here. I'm excited to report some really awesome things happening, I don't even know where to start, and I don't want to write a novel since that may turn away "readership" here's looking at you Dad. So, bullets perhaps.

• We are in the process of helping to facilitate a network among the organizations working for visual impairments with children here in Bangalore. There are 4 already committed, now we're going to formalize it with an email list. 
• Making strides at convincing the above organizations to pool resources, so that they aren't all individually constantly reinventing the wheel. I believe they are slowly coming to think they aren't in competition with each other.
• I've already promised two schools boxes of braille story books. I was at a school run by some wonderful nuns, at the Jyothi Seva School for the Blind http://www.jyothiseva.ovh.org/Main.html, they have their roots in Poland, but there are over 20 sisters there from India, and 2 from Poland. Unfortunately, they have so few braille books that they are unable to let the kids really read them. The books looked brand new! They are afraid the kids will destroy them, and they won't get others. The kids get 30 minutes a day to read, they can't take them from the library though. I had them promise that if I sent them books, they'd let the kids take them to their rooms, read them before bed, and "love" them lots. I said if the kids "destroy" them, to let me know and we'll replace them with others. This is how literacy happens. Unfortunately the way braille is, with raised bumps on paper, there is a life span on books, the braille gets pressed down and so forth, so they'll keep needing more, and they're one of hundreds of schools just here in India. We'll start in Bangalore though with creating better braille libraries, then the world. You know, baby steps.
• The students in the class are doing so awesome. This is our last week, today is our last day. They've come an incredible distance in only a month's time. You'd never guess to look at them teach that they've only been doing it for a month. I KNOW they'll take this teaching into the world of their schools. This class has been about so much more than orientation and mobility. They've gotten a complete "crash course" in visual disabilities. Already, on Saturday one of the schools represented is having their first cooking class with their students. They're now working to teach them true independence rather than just getting them job placements, and then having them still live at home with their parents.
• A parents network is also being formed here in Bangalore, so that the parents can support each other. Remember, when we pulled the parents together for the class? It was the first time ANY of them had ever been around another parent who had a kid with a visual impairment. That's changed now, and they'll have a network of support to draw from, and share resources with. Many of the parents here in India do the modifications for the school work, not the vision teachers, they're spread too thin. So they need support too. Susan and Lauren hosted a tactile graphics workshop with many of the parents as well as teachers in this area. So that's twice now they've all come together, and it looks like this is just the beginning.
• I really feel like the people we have worked with feel more empowered to think for themselves now. Its a common practice in our world to teach people not to think on their own. We are taught to ask for instructions, to rely on someone else to lead. We teach people that their opinions are likely not correct, that they'll probably screw something up. So, we get people with great ideas that don't feel empowered to act upon them, meanwhile kids are growing up without appropriate supports. I think this is changing, already I've heard of innovative ideas for teaching their students. Sure, they'll screw up, but they won't break anything. Even the effort is doing more than what is being done currently in many cases. Each screw up, and each success, teaches us how to do it better, whatever "it" is. Could be teaching, could be riding a bike, it all works the same. This is how every great teacher I know has gotten to be great.

After this trip, I'm convinced we have a viable model for making change in the world of visual impairments in developing countries. I can't wait to get this braille book program off the ground. The sisters told me that Free Matter for the Blind is a world wide program, and that the shipping is free. I'll have to explore this more, if this is true, that removes a significant barrier to having this program be successful. I really doubt that the sisters lied about the Free Matter thing, I mean, they are nuns... Susan, Lauren, and I were starting to feel a bit intimidated at international shipping rates. 

We've not fleshed out the details on the magnifier/monocular program yet, I'll let you know as I work it out. I'd love for your thoughts if you know of a way to make this possible. I know what the goal looks like, its this: Appropriate magnifiers and monoculars given to people with low vision along with proper training in their use, for free, or at a reduced cost, so that these folks have access to another literacy medium than just braille. Print is the sighted world's literacy, the ability to offer access to this is priceless. 

I'm also still looking for someone to work with me in getting kids with visual impairment in the US or other "developed" countries in connection with kids with visual impairment in the developing world. Fundraising would be awesome, our kids at home can help to support a cause that is meaningful to them, and help to help kids around the world. A pen pal program would also be just as awesome. So to all the teachers out there of kids with visual impairments reading this, get those ideas flowing, and feel free to email, mickey@abilitybeyondthehorizon.org I will get back with you, though I'm super swamped at the moment so it may be a little slower than normal.

Enough for now, here are some photos! In this collection will be pics from a trip to the jungle we took last weekend. I can't tell you how wonderful it was for this nature kid to actually get out into it. It was incredibly rejuvenating. Also there are other pics from a school we went to yesterday that is an extension of the one that we went to and gave canes out here in Bangalore. Its a farm on 20 acres, they have kids who are deaf, have cognitive impairments, and blind. Not all together though, they are either blind, or deaf, or have a cognitive impairment. There are a couple with multiple disabilities as well. Anyway, they completely work this farm, and most of the adults have a disability as well. Its awesome, really.

A wild elephant. This was a much more powerful way to see these beautiful creatures, rather than a zoo or circus.

A mother and baby, also wild.

Lets continue this cute baby animal series:

Seriously, so cute.

Breakfast!

These are Langurs, they may be my favorite monkey to date.

My little monkey

A leopard, we were incredibly lucky to catch this guy, unfortunately this is the best photo :-( Its pretty cool though!

Closest we got to a tiger, seems like we just missed him :-(

This is filled with cow dung that they are mixing into a "slurry" they will then drain it down under that drum on the left, it will produce methane which will raise that barrel up as it fills with gas. The gas will then be sent through that pipe to cook with in the kitchen, like propane. Very gross process, but really cool for what it does. Why waste the cow manure? Those guys are both blind.

These are silk worms that they are harvesting. The smiling man is deaf, the man I'm talking with is blind.

Lunch on a banana leaf, was awesome!

Wish I could take him home with me, such a cool kid, also deaf.

Climbing a coconut tree. They teach blind people to do this to earn a wage for coconut harvesting.

Doing some obligatory coconut juggling

Teaching a couple of the kids with hearing impairments to juggle

This man went and climbed a tree to get us these coconuts to drink from. He's fast!

Lauren and Susan drinking from their "tender coconuts"

Kids in the classroom studying, these are the kids with hearing impairments.

Quickly "downing" a coconut so we could head back to the center to teach the last O&M class.

If you'd like to see other India pics, you can go here, and here to my picasa album. For the non techy, click on the two blue "here"s that is underlined in that last sentence :-)

So that's all for now, this afternoon Lauren and Susan are teaching a class on daily living skills. These are the skills necessary to do things like cook when you can't see. We're going to make some fun Indian food, pass around some hugs and smiles, and promise to stay in touch. Tomorrow I'm speaking to some teachers at a head start school, further extolling the benefits of the "expanded core curriculum", I'm really beginning to feel like a missionary for this. I'll then have Sunday off, and will meet Abbyshake for one last lesson for a couple hours on Monday. We'll get on a plane at 2:30am Tuesday morning and head back to our regularly scheduled programming. So this is probably my last update before heading home. Love you all, and so glad you accompanied us on this adventure. We really did, and are changing lives. I can't wait to start the planning for the next couple of trips. 

~Mickey

Hyderabad, Bangkok, and a hopeful new ABH program

This past weekend I went to Hyderabad to visit Devnar School for the Blind, the largest school in India, and probably in the world, according to the founder. They have 480 students according to the founder Dr. Goud, an ophthalmologist who founded the school 20 years ago starting with just 4 students. Now its quite the place with literally hundreds of students with visual impairments everywhere you look. Santhosh Kumar a teacher I've mentioned before who met me in the US while I was speaking at a conference set the trip up.

I couldn't imagine being better taken care of, Dr. Goud put me up in this very exclusive club that he's a member of. I ate dinner with him and some very nice people, and had tea with a former commissioner of Hyderabad, so it'd be like having tea with the mayor of Atlanta or something. Everyone was very kind, tending to my every need, to the point of almost being smothering to this guy who is not used to anyone even getting drinks for him, let alone opening all the doors, carrying his bags, ordering his food, accompanying him to the zoo, wanting to sit with him at the airport... you get the idea. In the US we just aren't used to that kind of treatment :-)

During my time at Devnar I met with the teachers and parents, as well as many of the students. I introduced them to sighted guide, though I have my doubts as to whether they'll use it yet, and also basic cane techniques. There is only so much that can be accomplished in a day, and I feel that after next summer when we have someone training there for a month that we'll be able to make some more permanent changes in school culture.

One of the things I find frustrating about these schools, this also was the case in Vietnam, is that they have access to technology and some resources that someone donated, in this case a Mount Batten Braille Writer, an expensive tool, and they rarely let the students use it for fear that they'll break it. This saddens me, because I'm sure the intention of the donor was that the kids would actually make use of these technologies rather than just being used to show to visitors. This isn't just at Devnar, I've seen this at most of the centers I've visited. I got the same impression about the library, it just didn't seem to be set up in a way that the children would be using it on a regular basis.

This brings me to another aspect of the organization that is hopefully blossoming here in India. We need to find a way to get books to these kids, as well as magnifiers. They are teaching children to read braille with great fervor, and yet most of the braille the kids ever touch comes in the form of their textbooks. They don't have much to read simply for the joy of reading. Additionally, once they graduate, they'll not have much access to braille again, so it makes one wonder why the students spend so much time studying it. I'd like to start a program through ABH that provides recreational/supplementary reading material to these kids. I know there are many parents in the states who have a stack of braille books and magazines just sitting there that their child has outgrown, but they don't want to throw it away. So, I want to repurpose those books, and send them to these places in India, and other countries, with the understanding that the kids actually USE them. They MUST be read, and enjoyed, if I come to the school and find the braille still crisp, the pages unbent and clean, I won't be a happy camper :-) Perhaps if I lay it out in this way, they'll actually spread the books around.

The other thing is a magnifier/monocular program. I know that in the US we don't prescribe these until the child has been properly seen by at least an optometrist, but again this is something highly unrealistic in the developing world. I've met MANY children here that are visually impaired that are functionally illiterate with print, when in the states braille would not even be considered as a reading medium for them. The difference is, these children have no means to access the print, where in the US they would have a magnifier to keep in their pocket. These things are not expensive, we just need to get them here.

So two new initiatives, I'd love for someone to come forward and offer to head them up. Anyone amongst the readership feel so moved, and would like to take this project on? I'd love to somehow involve American schools for the blind in these things as well as my friends with itinerant teaching loads. I think it would be very educational for these kids to learn about children they can relate to in other parts of the world. We can start with just one school and see how it goes... Anyway, just me day dreaming, hopefully we can turn the dream into a reality.

In other news, I was pleasantly surprised to get an email from Bangkok this morning. They are asking for us to train in Thailand, and they even asked about the costs. This is very encouraging since it seems that our little endeavor is getting some real legs. They want me to teach in September, which definitely can't happen, but its showing that this initiative will have to become more than a summer project in years to come. Grants first though, I've got to feed the kid and keep the power on :-) Thanks Deb Gleason at Perkins International for passing along my information.

Ok, pics and video, for those of you reading this in your email, you'll have to go to the actual site to see the video, they don't often go through email. That link is: www.abilitybeyondthehorizon.org/blog.php My apologies on video quality, these were taken with my cell phone. Pictures after the videos.

This first video are kids fascinated with the power window of the car. You can get a sense of the sheer amount of students that are here, and how they were all over the place all of the time. I've included two, one is me teaching this guy to put the window up, you can see my hand move in at ten seconds in, and the second video is this guy defending his window button as the other kids want to explore. Also look at the other kids just exploring the car, they clearly don't have a lot of experience with cars. Both videos are very short.





In this video you can see the morning check in, this is just a short piece of it. The lighting comes and goes, but its very interesting to see how this is done.


In this video its clear that these students don't have enough canes, and that the whole idea is new to them. This was just a small number of the students who were allowed to play with them, I was crazily moving around trying to introduce some semblance of cane technique so that they could see the value. Every moment it seemed like I had a kid or a parent come to me and say, "Please sir, show me how to use the cane?" "My son, he's totally blind, can you teach him?". It was tough, and cements the need for training here next summer.


How many kids can we put on a merry-go-round? They were going SO much faster than this video shows. These types of activities are useful for kids to get the body/sensory input they are often craving which tends to result in rocking and other self-stimulatory movements in children with visual impairments. Incidentally, the rate of these inappropriate self-stim behaviors seems to be much less here in India, this is purely casual observation though.

Now, some pictures!

SO many kids!! This is morning check in.

Morning breakfast, this was half the kids, they eat in two shifts

This hand on shoulder technique is how most of the children move around the school. The one with the most vision leads the group.

Bangalore Cows getting in out of the rain. Just random India fun

I'm hoping this weekend that we'll be able to do something touristy. Melissa is trying to line something up where I might be able to see wildlife. Thanks for the comments on facebook and the emails, they're very kind.

~Mickey

In this Episode, Abilities are Found Beyond Horizons at a School for the Blind

See what I did with that title, working in our organization's name and such? Clever huh? :-) I think its good to start any endeavor with a smile, so figured I'd at least entertain myself with this blog post.

So, since we last spoke, a lot has happened. I could write every day and have so much to say, because Lauren, Susan and I are literally working nearly all day. Its so great though, I have to remember to let Lauren and Susan work with blind kids, I get so involved, and its like I have laser focus on. I told them tonight that they need to advocate for themselves and say when they want to get in there and get dirty. Don't get me wrong, they're definitely all in the action, but I'm afraid that sometimes my enthusiasm might make me a bit of a "ball hog". Here's my public admission of guilt, and request for forgiveness :-)

Ok, to the action! We met with Abbyshake on Monday and went on more adventures. First we reviewed some of the work we did the previous week, which he struggled with. Some of the enthusiasm and bullet-proofness he was feeling when he left us on Wednesday had diminished a bit, so we worked to build that back up. We explored out of the Enable India center and went about half a kilometer or so down the street with the intention of buying a flower for his mother. I don't like to just send kids walking, I like travel to have a purpose, so the flower was just a means to an end, and set the necessary stage for other teaching to happen. So along the way we were able to explore different jobs in the world, like the Autorickshaw driver, a critical part of the working of India. Autos, as they are more commonly called, are essentially the taxi cab in India and there are literally thousands in Bangalore.

Abbyshake exploring the auto

So, after we explored the outside of the auto, which to my understanding, he's never done, and with the smiles and universal body language of "I like this, that kid is cute" of Latif the driver, I asked if Abbyshake could get into the driver's seat. He did this pretty eagerly and seemed to enjoy seeing the auto from the drivers perspective. He even got to honk the horn, a very common sound here in Bangalore, and one that Abbyshake has now learned the origin of with first hand experience.

We then moved on to the flower vendor and worked on money skills. Abbyshake, as is common with children with visual impairments, could verbally tell me exactly what needed to happen, and how much change he would get with a 20 rupee note when the flower costs 10 rupees, but when it came to the actual transaction, he had to be prompted through the whole exercise. He put the money back into his pocket after showing it to the vendor, and when the vendor asked for money he said, indignantly, "I've already paid you!" to which I had to tell him, "No, you haven't." So after he paid and received his change, he asked if he could buy another flower for his teacher Shanthala, and of course, that's fine. He did this second exchange much more appropriately. Do you see how critical it is to get the hands involved when working with a kid with a visual impairment? Just talking to them, doesn't work, they're great at parroting back, even if they don't really understand, as was clear with Abbyshake and the money.

Abbyshake with flowers

We began our walk home, and were pretty soon accosted by a street kid dressed in a funny costume begging for money. This in itself isn't too unusual here, but what was really cool about it was to watch Abbyshake in action as he told the kid, "No, go away." and other types of phrases. It was really cool to see his advocacy for himself here, he was very firm with this other kid.

Street kid begging from Abbyshake, Abbyshakes head is turned back as he tells the kid to "Go!"

We headed back to the school, and along the way he learned about postal workers, and talked with a software engineer when the man came to check his mail. Once we returned to the center, Abbyshake tried to give his mother the flower, and she tried to have him give it to me. Grumble, parents sometimes just don't get it! Its like last Friday when the kids made sandwiches and a couple of the parents refused to eat them, it crushed the kids. They were so excited to finally participate, and here they were being shot down. You may as well tell a kid who draws you a picture in crayon that his art sucks, and that he should pursue a career elsewhere. Its no different here. Yikes.

The school for the blind

Yesterday we visited a school for the blind that two of my students are working at. They will leave our class and work as mobility instructors for this school. There is currently a guy teaching mobility there, but he only teaches "theory" whatever that means, and not until they are 12-14 years old, and even then he doesn't teach them actual cane skills, they just learn about them. Oh, and he refuses to teach girls. So, Latha and VjLakshmi are going to be real assets to the school. When we went out yesterday to visit we sat for the first 45 minutes and watched promotional videos about the school, and all the things they do there. I'm getting copies of these videos. They have their own dairy, packing plant where they make cardboard boxes, silk worm production area, and coconut harvesting, and horticulture business. All of these things are staffed with blind kids, and its really quite impressive. Independent living skills at this school are not so much a concern as workplace injury is!

Blind students working with large industrial staple machine

Blind students making cardboard

We introduced a total of 7 children to canes yesterday. It was magic for them, you would think these kids had used canes for years, they learned so quickly! They buzzed around the school, which they already knew, with such confidence and speed the teachers were really surprised. Before, even though the kids knew the school, they would still walk with shuffling feet so as not to stumble over the upcoming drop off, or hit the wall. When we put a cane in their hand, and they now had 3 feet of advance notice in front of them, they couldn't be stopped. It was wonderful. The saddest part was having to take the cane back from them to give to another child. They wanted to keep them! They don't make canes that are kid sized in India, so I think we're going to make them out of mop handles instead that we've cut down to size. 

Seriously, how cute are those kids?!? Here are some other random photos.

The only deaf girl in a school for the blind, not sure what will happen with her

Kids teaching each other dance moves and finger positioning

The dairy cows

The Prayer Hall

This cool thing they do math with, that I get to bring home to the states for show and tell

Kids working on math

Preschool class, looks like fun huh?

Seriously, how adorable is she?

Susan talking with her bff, this girl was a speed demon once she had her cane

The one that can see the best leads the others in a train

Kids being guided around the school, with O&M this lady wouldn't need to hold their hands

Unfortunately, we don't see much of Lauren in these photos, and that's because she's responsible for taking all these great pics. We'll try to get some of her in front of the camera soon. That's enough for now, I'm off to work with Abbyshake again. Today we're going to buy a jackfruit, cut it up and eat it. I hope your lives are going along wonderfully. I look forward to hearing from you all.

~Mickey

What its like to KNOW you've made a difference

Training has been going well, the students are making real progress in their ability to teach each other and not "enable" each other. I use the term enable here in the more negative way. To enable someone means to support them in such a way that allows their continued dependence on you, or someone else. Its a subtle skill of working with a student when they ask for assistance, you can give them the answer, which is the simpler thing to do. Or, you can ask them questions that cause them to solve their own problems. One way creates reliance on the instructor, the other fosters independence, I'm sure you can figure out which is which.

This is my classroom

Because we're not here for 2 years we can't go into the immense level of detail in instruction that we do at Florida State University. Instead, I'm teaching the students to think for themselves and to attempt to solve their own problems rather than be reliant on some fancy thing, or some not so fancy instructor from the US to come and tell them how to do it. In essence, just like I'm teaching the individual instructors to not be enablers of their students, I'm also teaching the whole group not to be reliant on me, or some other foreign source to answer their own questions.

So, making a difference: Part of what I wanted to do when visiting here was to pull the parents together of the kids that are worked through Enable India, the group that is hosting me. The term Enable, in Enable India is sort of a bit of irony, after I've explained my definition of what "enable" means, but its not what they mean. So, yesterday at 3pm about 20 or so parents, with their 10 children aged 2 and a half to 15 came to the centre for the differently-abled,

Centre for the Differently-Abled where we had the training for the parents

and for the next 3 hours Susan, Lauren, Melissa and Quin worked with the kids and made an American meal of grilled cheese, bananas, and Oreos, while I worked with the parents talking about visual impairment, the way a child with a visual impairment learns, the power of high expectations, etc. The parents were SO engaged, asking lots of questions of me and each other, and were exchanging contact information. At one point, I asked them to raise their hand if it was the first time they had been around another parent of a child with a visual impairment and every parent in the room raised their hand!

Can you imagine?? You have a child with a visual impairment. You are the only person that you know in your situation. Your friends don't understand what you are dealing with, they simply have pity. You don't want pity, you love your child and you want what's best for him just like every other parent in the world. Now imagine you've raised this child for 9 years with no one to really bounce ideas off of, you have a "professional" to talk to with Enable India, but its not like being able to sit over coffee or tea and just chat with someone who really understands. Now, you come into a room with 18 other people that are going, or have gone through many of the exact same trials and successes you've gone through. It was a REAL experience for everyone, and there were a few cases of misty eyes and goose bumps, at least for me.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Lauren, Susan, and Melissa were herding children around with a 13 year age span trying to introduce them to what we call "independent living skills" the skills one needs to be successful alone in the world, like cooking. For most of the kids they worked with, this was the first time they had really ever been asked to take responsibility for their own food and its preparation. If you could have seen the looks on their faces as they brought their "American food" to their parents, it was truly beautiful. You could see the feeling of accomplishment in their faces, and the pride in their steps.

Kids peeling bananas with Susan

Older students making sandwiches

A pile of grilled cheese

One person enjoying it :-)

One of the things that continues to impress me is how much the parents do for their children here in India. We often struggle to get parents to learn braille so they can read with their children, and here in India, many of the parents not only know braille, they also put their children in schools and transcribe all the work for the child into braille, struggling for the career of their child in school to get them access and a school that will allow them in and not treat them like monsters. 

The parents all told Shantala that they wanted to do this again. I encouraged them to keep meeting and supporting each other, as this really is one of the best ways to make growth. I also promised the young lady with albinism that I would ship her a magnifier. She can't get one here that is working for her. So, someone remind me to buy one when I get home. Next time I might see about getting some magnifiers donated, or take donations to buy them to bring with me next time I go to a country, the students would really value them like gold here.

The whole group

So last night, as I was going to sleep I was incredibly exhausted, but also immensely satisfied, knowing that yesterday, even if I get nothing else accomplished on the rest of this trip in India, we made a difference in the lives of children and parents. There is not a single doubt in my mind that we altered the trajectory of lives for the better. Thanks for coming along with me on this journey.

~Mickey