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Guiding Eyes for the Blind Receives $10,000 Grant for Braille Monitors
New Technology Designed to Assist Deaf-Blind Students
Guiding Eyes for the Blind, one of the nation's leading nonprofit guide dog schools, has received a $10,000 grant from NEC Foundation of America to purchase two Braille monitors for use by its Deaf- Blind clients. These clients enroll in Guiding Eyes' Special Needs Training Program, the first guide dog instruction program in the United States designed for blind individuals who have additional disabilities.
Each year Guiding Eyes graduates approximately 200 teams - blind men and women paired with Guiding Eyes dogs - who have successfully completed its 26-day in-residence training program at the Yorktown Heights headquarters. About twenty percent of these blind individuals have further physical limitations, such as cerebral palsy, epilepsy, and imbalance. Specially qualified Guiding Eyes' instructors select those dogs that will help accommodate their clients' impairments and train the "teams" to successfully go out into the world and live independently.
Guiding Eyes provides all of its services to the blind free of charge - including room and board during the in-residence training program. Guiding Eyes included in the plans for its recently constructed facility an Adaptive Technology Center, a resource where students benefit from computer technology designed for blind and visually impaired people. Availability of this advanced technology enhances students' quality of life and provides them access to internet resources.
Guiding Eyes' Adaptive Technology Center enables students to access family, school, or workplace and remain connected during their guide dog training. For those students unfamiliar with the latest adaptive technology, Guiding Eyes' Coordinator of Technical Services, a graduate of Guiding Eyes, assesses all arriving students on their technology needs and willingness to learn, and instructs them on how to make the best use of these resources.
Deaf-Blind students clearly face special challenges. Software exists for the blind that "reads" what is displayed on a computer monitor (called "Jaws") - but this is not useful to those who are also deaf. The grant from NEC Foundation of America enabled Guiding Eyes to purchase two new Braille displays, devices which allow students to check their computer input in Braille. Braille displays look like keyboards, but rather than being used for entering information, they indicate what has already been input - showing what is displayed on the computer monitor through dots that appear and form a line of Braille text that can be read by touch.
NEC Foundation of America was established in 1991 and endowed at $10 million by NEC Corporation and its United States subsidiaries. Income generated by the endowment is donated to nonprofit organizations in the United States in support of programs with national reach and impact in the arena of assistive technology for people with disabilities. Through its grants, NEC Foundation of America underscores its philosophy of advanced society through technology and enabling individuals to realize their full potential. For more information, visit www.necfoundation.org.
This grant has special meaning to Guiding Eyes students. "Seven out of ten blind people in the United States are unemployed or live at or below the poverty level, despite the fact that today's blind citizens are better educated than at any time in history," explained Guiding Eyes President and Chief Executive Officer William D. Badger. "Every student who successfully trains with a Guiding Eyes dog gains the freedom to live independently and expand their horizons of opportunity no matter how many obstacles may stand in their way. Guiding Eyes is grateful to NEC Foundation of American for helping us offer this assistive technology to our Deaf-Blind students. We instruct them on how to use the most up-to-date computer technology available so that they may apply these skills and live full and productive lives."
Guiding Eyes for the Blind is a world renowned 501(c)(3) nonprofit guide dog school founded over 50 years ago. Its mission is to enrich the lives of blind and visually impaired men and women by providing them with the freedom to travel safely, thereby assuring greater independence, dignity and new horizons of opportunity. It provides superbly bred Guiding Eyes dogs, professional training and follow-up support services to its blind clients free of charge with funds raised solely through contributions. Guiding Eyes for the Blind is not government funded, and it costs approximately $40,000 to prepare and support a Guiding Eyes team. Guiding Eyes for the Blind's Headquarters and Training Center is located in Yorktown Heights, New York and the Canine Development Center is in Patterson, New York.
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