A keyboard to freedom

Technology has meant independence for the blind -- although not in Egypt. Still, Gihan Shahine discovers that change may be imminent
To keep our faces toward change,
And behave like free spirits,
In the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
-- Helen Keller, Let's Have Faith --
With "strength undefeatable," Keller could escape the "double dungeon of darkness and silence." Through her "wise fingers," she said, she could "snatch light out of darkness." She dedicated her life to improving the condition of the blind. That, however, was at the turn of the century. Had Keller been alive today, her missions would have been far easier thanks to new technology.
Until very recently, Braille was the only information gateway through which blind people had access to the world. Today, computers not only help "snatch light out of darkness," they actually place the world at the tip of "wise fingers" through adaptive software -- an auditory programme that makes computers talk. Adaptive technology (programmes for the blind are mainly speech synthesis and Braille output) enables the blind to obtain books printed in Braille, use the Internet, and access otherwise unavailable information.
"The computer is my eyes," maintains Ahmed Khater, a blind teaching assistant at Helwan University's Faculty of Arts, English Department. Khater once depended on friends and colleagues to read him at least 70 books for his master's degree in linguistics and legal translation, as well as help him write up and correct student's exams for the 20 classes he is still teaching.
Today, Khater is totally independent. He has a computer with adaptive software that pronounces every key he taps. The computer is hooked up to a scanner that converts pages into text files; then the computer reads the text through a speech synthesiser. For Khater, reading books is now a piece of cake.
So is work. "I browse the Internet, get texts from English newspapers and adapt them for teaching purposes and exams," he explains. Khater also surfs the web to order new books, search for paper topics, communicate with people around the world, send SMSs and read the news. "For the first time, I feel really free -- a far cry from the way I felt before," he says with a smile.
Khater, however, is among the privileged few blind people in Egypt who can afford adaptive technology (the computer, kits and software cost a total of LE11,000), let alone obtain higher education.
According to a study conducted by the non- governmental Association for Health and Environmental Development (AHED), educational facilities for the blind generally fall short of fulfilling their demands. The study shows that, according to most conservative estimates, there are at least 60,000 blind children in Egypt, only 2,200 of whom are enrolled in schools, because facilities are inaccessible for most of the blind population.
Most of the schools and NGOs providing special care and education for the non-sighted are located in Cairo and the Delta. Twenty- five per cent are in Upper Egypt's towns and cities, and none exist in the rural areas. That is, only one per cent of those who need special education are actually receiving it.
Those familiar with technology constitute a fraction of all blind people in Egypt -- 12.5 per cent of the most conservative official estimate of over two million disabled persons nationwide. (According to the Red Crescent, there are as many as six million disabled people in Egypt.)
Recently, however, some progress has been made in Cairo. "More and more of my colleagues, friends and acquaintances now use computers. Many have PCs at home, and use them to improve their educational and employment prospects," Khater asserts. "They rely on demos they download from the Internet -- a free substitute for highly expensive adaptive software."
In 1998, the Cabinet Information and Decision Support Centre (IDSC) established a number of computer labs for the blind at Cairo and Ain Shams universities, in schools affiliated to Al-Nour wal-Amal (a non- governmental association for the blind), and at the non-governmental Demonstration Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Blind.
The project was designed to solve reading and writing problems facing the educated blind, and solutions were readily at hand, since writing a page in Braille takes 45 minutes, compared with 15 to 17 when typed and printed on the computer.
"The project has made headway," a blind student at Ain Shams's Faculty of Languages says. "University labs make textbooks available, and we either get them on diskettes or printed out in Braille."
Until recently, only school syllabi and some children's stories were printed in Braille. University students had no access to books, yet were asked to hand in the same assignments as their sighted colleagues. Maintenance, however, is a problem. "There is no budget to update software and repair computers and printers," Khater explains. Some of the printers at the Cairo University lab are already broken. The IDSC's role seems to have ended when it provided the technology; the university claims that funds are not readily available.
Help, however, seems to be on its way, in the form of a project to provide 28 computers, adaptive software for the blind, scanners and Braille printers to universities and some specialised schools in Cairo. The Rotary Club has funded the project, which costs a total of LE300,000. What is unique about the project is the bilingual software the Rotary is buying -- the first ever enabling blind students to read and print material in Arabic and browse Arabic-language sites on the Internet.
"This is only the first step of our project," says Rotary member Ibtisam El-Leithi. "We also have a long-term plan to distribute laptops to distinguished blind students who make top of the class."
The Rotary project was the brainchild of renowned composer Ammar El-Shere'i, who also happens to be blind. El-Shere'i's dream has always been "to provide every blind person in Egypt with a computer."
"I've wanted that since the 1980s, when I started using computers," he recounts. El- Shere'i is utterly dependent on his computer to write his music, read the papers, record phone numbers (instead of memorising them) and, as he puts it, getting in touch with the world directly. "Computers changed my life. They are as important to the blind as oxygen," he maintains.
For a decade, El-Shere'i sought sponsors who would make his dream reality. Finally, the Rotary stepped in to give a hand. "Even the Ministry of Education turned a deaf ear," he remarks. "When the IDSC launched the project, they didn't consult us, the blind, who have experience with adaptive software and computers. The result was that they wasted funds buying primitive software at seven times their original price."
El-Shere'i, however, is not fully satisfied with the Rotary project: "The blind need to adapt to computers, and they cannot do so unless they have their own PCs." Blindness, he argues, has always been linked to poverty and illiteracy, so the majority of blind people are still cut off from the world.
"Having one computer for many blind students to use is not practical," he explains. "Blind students will never really learn how to use computers that way; they will depend on lab assistants to print out material. And this is not the real freedom and independence I want for them." But if the Rotary proceeds with its laptop project, El-Shere'i adds, that will definitely solve much of the problem.
Training, however, remains an obstacle. Human resources are available, but the necessary facilities are not. Khater's experience underlines this deficiency. He attended a USAID- funded training programme in the US on the use of adaptive technology in teaching blind students English. One programme requirement was to deliver a five-day training course to blind people in Egypt. He was unable to secure facilities, however, until the American University in Cairo (AUC) offered space. Khater is still unable to provide regular training for the blind, however, as "no single entity is prepared to adopt the idea."
He believes the ministries of education and higher education should place the training programme high on their list of priorities. The ministries, he adds, are already encouraging computer literacy among school students. The blind should not be an exception.
"There may be efforts to help the blind, but these efforts are usually scattered. There should be one strong entity, perhaps linked to the government, capable of combining all these efforts in one large-scale, effective project," Khater maintains.
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