On 19th August 2018, Disabled Persons’ Association of Bhutan conducted one day workshop on basic ICT (Information Communication and Technology) knowledge and skills to 11 individuals living with visually impaired
The main objectives for conducting such workshop was to: (1) share what was learnt in the training at Malaysia by two staff of DPAB, (2) provide basic knowledge and skills on computer using NVDA () Screen Reader to the visually impaired people living around Thimphu area.
The workshop was facilitated by two staff of DPAB who was trained on ICT knowledge from Teruko Ikeda ICT Training at Penang, Malaysia. The workshop has also helped in implementing their knowledge, skills and their experiences to the participants.
The workshop began with the introduction of basic concepts and its features of NVDA (Non Visual Desktop Access) which is a free “screen reader” that enables blind and vision impaired people to use computers. Participants were trained on basic usage of Microsoft office 2016 (such as basic tasks and uses of word processors, excel and PowerPoint) in Microsoft Window 8 and 10 computers.
A session of installation of NVDA and OCR on window was done to make participants feel confident about the installation of software on the computers. The workshop session also included other topics like: Internet explorer, Google format and usage of free OCR (Optical Character Recognition) which outputs plain text and can export directly to Microsoft Word format like PDF’s and multi page Tiff images as well as popular image file formats.
At the end of the workshop, many participants shared that they were very privileged and happy to take part in this workshop. Some of them said that they have not only gain the knowledge and skills to use and operate computers at their workplace but also helped them to access the wealth of information that is available on the internet by using Screen reader application. Few participants expressed that if DPAB could provide access training materials like printed notes in Braille text format then it would helped them to get more access.
Participants also thanked to DPAB and to the trainers for conducting successful workshop The workshop then ended with closing notes from one of the participants who immensely thanked DPAB for conducting ICT workshop and their wonderful hospitality.