ABC signs MoU with partner in Nepal

The Accessible Books Consortium has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with The Action on Disability Rights and Development (ADRAD) for the production of 140 textbooks for primary and secondary school students in Nepal. The funding for the project has been generously provided by the Government of Australia.

Nepal is now the fourth country in which the ABC is facilitating capacity building activities, along with Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka. Over the course of the next six months, textbooks for primary and secondary school students will be produced in accessible formats. This will result in visually impaired students throughout the Nepalese school system having access to educational materials previously out of reach. This will allow them to gain the qualifications they need to make the best possible start to their working lives.

The project will give approximately 1,500 primary, secondary and undergraduate students access to books. Birendra Raj Pokharel, Chairperson of ADRAD said that "Visually impaired persons in Nepal have great difficulty in both school and in the workplace, and the numbers of visually impaired students finishing their studies and securing meaningful employment is far too low. At ADRAD we seek to empower visually impaired persons so that they can have the same choices when it comes to life, work and study as fully sighted persons. This project will therefore make a huge difference to the lives of visually impaired students, giving them the power to make choices in their lives that were previously made by others, or were simply not available to them."

ADRAD is a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Katmandu, which works to ensure positive changes in the lives of persons with disabilities. It promotes a more accessible environment within which to live, work and study. The ABC is committed to assisting in facilitating such positive change through increasing the number of accessible books and getting them in the hands of the visually impaired worldwide.