Calendars are more often than not very colorful with attractive pictures in them. We mostly choose the calendars based on how attractive these pictures are because for the functional part – seeing the date – each one is same. Another functionality comes with the size – table top, wall mounted or pocket calendar.
But have you ever thought about how a low vision or a blind person would be viewing dates daily? How can we give them a dates and picture experience with calendars? A regular braille calendar would just be boring with only dates and no pictures. In order to give the same experience to people with visual impairment, we decided to make calendars with tactile paintings. The calendar is in Braille (for totally blind) and large print (for low vision) and a tactile version of an image is next to it thus ensuring both the picture and the date functionality. These are also useful for people with learning disability.
It was a very different experience for me personally, as I have wanted to volunteer for something like this since long… In order to sensitize sighted people, blind fold activities were also conducted by Enable India. And what topped it all, was that we were taught by our special Hearing Impaired Volunteers and Tactile expert Shantala:) It was a day full of learning. Right from when and how help a blind cross the road,