To give the visually-impaired an opportunity to read and enjoy books, Karadi Cultural Alliance Trust, along with Ratan Tata Trust Fund has launched the Creative Resource Center (CRC) for visually-impaired children.
The CRC is a library that is housed at the Hippocampus Children’s library. It has several non-academic books for children and will have over 100 braille and tactile books published by popular children’s authors. The center will also have audio books of famous folktales of India.
The Karadi Cultural Alliance Trust is a not-for-profit organisation started in 2003, to contribute to the alleviation of educational and cultural deprivation of underprivileged children through creative materials and methods.
I Arivanandam, Regional Director of the National Institute for the Visually-Handicapped, inaugurated the CRC at the Hippocampus recently.
“We felt a need for such a library for the kids. This center is a first-of-its-kind in India and we are very excited about the potential it holds,” said Shobha Viswanathan, a representative from the Karadi Cultural Alliance Trust.
The CRC aims to stimulate the creative development of children with visual imparities and help them grow. The books can be accessed for free.
Chandni Khanna, Director, Hippocampus, urged the children of St Louis Institute for the Deaf and Blind and Little Flower Convent for the Deaf and Blind, who were present during the inauguration, to make use of the facility. When the idea was initially tossed around, Shobha said the Trust was looking to set up the Center at the Anna Centenary Library, but when things didn’t pan out, they approached Hippocampus. “The National Institute for the Visually-Impaired and St Louis School were willing to give us space, but we thought that it wouldn’t be as accessible,” explained Shobha.