Details:
TMAD, as a group, is committed to supporting Differently Abled. We understand their concern and urge for encouragement from society. We have been helping visually challenged by keeping in touch with them and addressing their requirements one after the other.
We, TMAD, decided to help Jagadeesh garu, a visually challenged govt. teacher from Vizag, to buy a Braille printer so that he can realize his dream of providing Braille text books free of cost to visually challenged.
From 18th Feb to 20th July, this has been a good, interesting, enthusiastic and anxious journey. Two to three more days to hand over the printer to Jagadeesh garu.
Updates:
27th September 2011:
Received the progress update from Jagadeesh garu. He has printed around 1000 text books (1st to 10th Standard) and gave to visually challenged students. Initially the commissioner of police of Visakhapatnam city has inaugurated the books on the eve of Independence day.
This is his letter:
I am very much thankful to your precious contribution for printing of braille books. The visually challenged students of visakhapatnam came from the position of not getting anything to will challenge anything with these text books, the total credit goes to you only. We need your valuable contribution in all of our activities.
27th July, 2011:
We successfully handed over the Printer to Jagadeesh garu.
21st July, 2011:
We will be sending that to Vizag today (Friday) or tomorrow (Saturday).
Our TMAD Blr volunteer, Kamalnath, is in Vizag now. He will receive and hand over to Jagadeesh garu. We will post the final update then.
20th July, 2011:
Naveen Ramisetty has spent most of the day in Airport to collect the printer. The printer is with us now.
19th July, 2011:
Naveen Ramisetty has taken half day leave (spent the whole day) to complete the formalities.
18th July, 2011:
Harinath garu has taken leave on Monday and was there the whole day. They didn't charge any customs duty as this is Braille related (exempted from Customs duty).
16th July, 2011:
Our volunteers, Harinath garu, Diwaker garu and Kasyap, went to Airport on Saturday, met the authorities and discussed about the formalities.
15th July, 2011:
On Friday (15th July), Harinath garu received call from Airport that the printer is available and we should go through Customs Clearance.
8th July, 2011:
We received the confirmation of the shipment.
Subject: Shipment Order 34572, shipping docs
Dear Harinath,
Finally we were able to send your order, here attached please find the shipping documents.
Best regards
Elina Peltoniemi Export Secretary
29th June, 2011:
We followed up for an update and this is the reply:
Hello Harinath,
The earlier given estimated shipping week 27 from Index is still valid.You will most likely have to pay some taxes/fees when receiving the embosser - anyhow we here at Index unfortunately don’t know about the local taxes/prices. I’ll keep you informed when we ship your embosser.
With best regards,
Elina
31st May, 2011:
We received confirmation from Ms. Elina of IndexBraille with whom we have been in touch eversince we thought of fund raising to purchase the printer:
We have now received confirmation of your payment from our bank as well, thank you.
Here attached please find OC 34572 for the offer 11453.
We have had some unfortunate delays with the start of the production and shipments of the new V4 embosser line, that’s why the estimated shipping week on the OC is only week 27. Anyhow, hopefully soon we will get back to our normal production speed and can clear up the backlog of the current orders.
We’ll keep you informed about the shipping time.
16th May, 2011:
On 16th May, he spent around 3 hours for visiting the bank (needed to go to 2 different branches) and completed the formalities. We submitted forms for the transaction of USD 2912. It will take around 3 days for the transaction to take place.
14th May, 2011:
Our volunteer Harinath garu visited the bank and found that we need to get the 15CA, 15CB documents signed from our CA to process the payment to Sweden company. On 14th, he went to CA's office and completed the procedure.
Source for this Information: Ms. Ramadevi of ETV2 Channel. She is an enthusiastic media person who is eager to help the people in genuine need by showcasing about them in her programme, Sakhi. She has shared about him in her programme. She also requested us to help him.
Initial Discussion: Our volunteer spoke with Jagadeesh garu and posted the initial details to the team and in the BOSF forum. We received good feedback about Jagadeesh garu from one of our friends from other group.
We discussed with Jagadeesh garu about getting funding from govt., approaching media and all. He has tried all possible options from his end. He has got good support from the Collector of Vizag. He has donated around Rs. 60,000 to Jagadeesh garu to buy text books for distribution to Visually Challenged as he couldn't help from govt. end.
Sri Jagadeesh mentioned that there is only one distributor in Mumbai who can supply the printer and it would cost four lakhs if we purchase in India. If we purchase from Sweden, we can get it for a lesser price.
Our President Harinath wrote to Sweden company after the model has been selected by Jagadeesh. The corresponding company (indexbraille.com) has agreed to send the model, Braille Embosser Basic-D V4, for 2.476,00 US Dollars with the freight charge to Hyderabad as 436,00 US Dollars.
We shared the info. with our team and we decided to take up the case after considering and exploring all the possible options.
Importance of Braille Textbooks: For Visually Challenged, the walking stick and braille are the eyes. They will be impaired if they do not know how to read Braille. Unfortunately govt. is not providing Braille text books. The reason stated was that the visually challenged population is comparatively less.
Organizations which have been helping Visually Challenged, specially in Education, are helping by providing recorded lessons either in CDs or Cassettes. This would be a temporary and immediate help but not beneficial in the long run. Text books are not provided even for teachers (visually challenged) leave alone the students.
The effort is :
1. To compile text books for 1st to 10th Standard in Braille
2. To make the study material available in Braille
3. To distribute text books to 12,432 visually challenged students throughout A.P state.
4. To provide text books to visually challenged teachers
Location: The idea is to set up the Braille printing press at Padhmanabham, Visakhapatnam as Mr.Jagadish Babu, a VH teacher of Reddipalli will look after the centre.
Usage: The hammer(catridge) in a printer produces print for 2,50,000 pages. Assuming that a book contains 300 pages. So on an average 835 books. After this we can replace the hammer(catridge) with low maintenance (around Rs. 14,000).
Output: The Braille printing press will supply the following textbooks prepared in Braille to the visually impaired children of the A.P state.
- I to V Class - Primary Section: Telugu, English, Environmental Science and mathematics.
- VI to X class High School Section: Telugu, English, Hindi and the non details including prose and poetry in each language.
- VI and VII Classes: Mathematics, social studies and general science for the classes.
- VIII to X Classes: Mathematics, physical science and Natural science and Geography, history, Economics and civics in social studies will be prepared.
Distribution: In each school, either primary or secondary, each student has to be supplied Braille books in addition to the table copy of the teacher and library copy of the school.
Address of Sri Jagadeesh: Reddipalli Jagadishbabu, General secreatary, AASARA Swachanda Seva Sangam, Reddipalli, Padhmanabham, Vishakhapatnam-531219. Mobile:99499-26496
Visit www.aasara-india.org
Funds Required: Rs. 1,50,000 (3500 US Dollars)
The amount specified is only for the printer.
Funds Collected:
1. Prashant Neti - 200 US Dollars
2. Sandeep P. - 50 US Dollars
3. Rajesh Uppalapati - 100 US Dollars (350 * 43.83 15340)
4. Suresh Ediga's Cricket Team, New Jersey - 600 US Dollars (600 * 44.30 = 26580)
5. Jayadev - 100 US Dollars (100 * 43.80 = 4380)
Total Amount in Rupees After Transaction - Rs. 46300
Contribution in Indian Rupees
1. Deepthi M. - Rs. 3000
2. Arun's Friends - Rs. 2000
3. Kavitha N Gollapudi - Rs. 2500
4. Sateesh Kumar Talupuri - Rs. 3000
5. Hamsini Raghavi - Rs. 200
6. Bhabhani Shankar Swain - Rs. 400
7. J. Samala Rao (then Vizag Collector) - Rs. 20,000 (This has been contributed to Jagadeesh garu on the occasion of his son's b'day)
8. Eye Care Mission Group - Rs. 3000
9. Prasad Godavarthi - Rs. 5000
10. Dave - Rs. 10000
11. Sai Kiran Bandari - Rs. 500
12. Annaji (US - Amigos) - Rs. 4500
13. Giri Kolanupaka - Rs. 5000
14. Naren Kollu - Rs. 25000
15. Padala Charitable Trust - Rs. 25000
16. K. Viswanath Kumar - Rs. 1000
17. Arun Tentu - Rs. 1000
Total Collection Amount - Rs. 1,63,400
Expenditure Details:
Printer Cost 1,34,158
Emirates Delivery Charges 1,049
Document Xerox Copies 30
Shipping Charges to VZM through Dhanunjay Travels 310
Warehouse Charges 550
Total 1,35,547
Excess Fund: Rs. 27,853
With the consent from the donor Naren Kollu, his contribution of Rs. 25,000 has been considered for another useful project, Braille Newsletter. Another donor Jayadev agreed to use Rs. 1527 from his contribution of Rs. 4380 to group fund.
Our Volunteers:
Harinath (93919-20444 - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Prasanthi (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
Naveen Ramisetty ( 98717-49529, 90525-25251 - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)