Touch Learn and Shine Program
Enabling education for visually impaired students.
A world without images for persons with visual impairment
Shristi, a 5 year old
loves stories
Does not know how a monkey looks like
Aman, a class 5 student
Wants to understand "where he lives"
Not possible without a map
Ravi, a class 10 student
Wants to understand digestion
Completely confused without a diagram
The Problem
The majority of students with Visual Impairment in India use textbooks in Braille or audio during their entire education. Visual images, which are an integral part of almost every textbook, are not available for them, which means that students with visual impairment would either skip such topics or just cram theory without any conceptual understanding.
Studying STEM subjects becomes even more challenging as a lot of concepts are understood with diagrams. As a result, many students with visual impairment drop subjects like Science and Mathematics, where illustrations, charts, graphs, and maps are necessary for conceptual understanding and less than 1% pursue STEM subjects in higher education.
Accessibility Gap in STEM Education
Tactile Images and
Teaching-learning Materials
We have successfully addressed this issue of the absence of diagrams in the education of a student with visual impairment through 4 years of research at IIT Delhi, supported by MeitY, Govt. of India. Our team has developed techniques for designing and producing diagrams in tactile (raised) formats that can be accessed via different shapes and textures.
Making Tactile Learning Affordable
We have developed tactile versions of more than 75+ books and 10+ aids covering topics and subjects like basic language learning, Mathematics and Science, Geography, Economics, Computers, and activity books to enable experiential learning for students with visual impairment.
With an end-to-end solution, we have ensured the availability of tactile diagrams in India at 1/5th of the international cost. Despite this, most schools and students do not have enough financial resources to procure them.
With the Touch Learn and Shine program, we aim to provide these resources to every student with visual impairment to create an inclusive environment where visually impaired students can study alongside sighted students.
How Touch Learn and Shine Works
Resources provided in the Program
We provide a tactile book set to each student specially tailored to enhance tactile perception as well as STEM tactile books covering Mathematics, Science, Geography and Computer-related diagrams.
Impact so far
So far, RLF has provided tactile resources to 7500+ students, trained 1000+ teachers, and covered 75+ schools across 20 states in India.
Some major projects completed under TLS program
| Projects Name | Supported By | No. of Beneficiaries |
|---|---|---|
| Touch learn and Shine Program | Intel India | 1000 Students from 15 Schools |
| Touch Learn and Shine Program | Vision Aid and Donor | 1600 Students from 25 Schools |
| Touch Learn and Shine Program | Concern India and Cadence | 840 Students from 12 Schools |
| Access to Quality Education | Saksham and SBI Foundation | 560 Students from 8 Schools |
Touch Learn and Shine Reviews
It was so hard to watch these babies—they would have tremor; they're2 inconsolable. And we couldn't it.
Manoj Tiwari
Head of department
It was so hard to watch these babies—they would have tremor; they're2 inconsolable. And we couldn't it.
Manoj Tiwari
Head of department
It was so hard to watch these babies—they would have tremor; they're2 inconsolable. And we couldn't it.
Manoj Tiwari
Head of department
