National Association for the Blind, India

The Braille Press prints textbooks of all subjects – including Math and Science – for English and Marathi medium students of Class I to XII in Maharashtra. We are proud to say, the Maharashtra Government has assigned us the task of supplying textbooks for blind students under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan. In the past too, we have printed textbooks for the States of Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Gujarat, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh. In addition, blind students pursuing higher education get many of their books, notes, and reference materials etc., converted in Braille, through the Braille Press.

Besides academic books, the Braille Press also publishes general literature – fiction and non-fiction – in five languages – Marathi, Hindi, English, Gujarati and Sanskrit. Besides, some classics have been printed and some religious texts are also made available to readers. For the past several years, the Braille Press has been publishing in Hindi, the popular calendar “NAB Dindarshika”, which is in great demand amongst the visually impaired persons and is supplied to over 1,500 blind individuals and institutions for the blind, all over India.

Some of our most recent publications include the Raagbodh (the entire syllabus of the Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Mahavidyalay) in seven volumes; the Oxford English to Hindi Dictionary in nine volumes and Hindi to English Dictionary in 13 volumes. Complimentary copies of these publications have been given cost-free to about 400 institutions for the blind, throughout India.

Literature printed at the Braille Press is made available to the blind at highly subsidized rates.

Identification and Referral Service: Newly VI persons and those VI individuals who have never had exposure to welfare activities are identified and referred to appropriate Department/s of NAB (India) and other institutions. Counselling, guidance and referral service is offered to the clients for availing financial, educational, medical and other facilities offered by State/Central Government agencies and other voluntary organizations. We also help them to have their online registration to get their disability certified and getting Unique Disability Identity Card through Government of India.

Our Rehabilitation officer accesses mental and cognitive capacities of the VI persons. Provide them personal and family counselling and convince them to achieve their self-sufficiency and self-dependency and help them to select proper avenues of their self-sufficiency. Whenever required we try to solve the problems faced by them in their family and society. We were accessing the at most need of the VI person and fully supported him to protect his equal opportunities, full participation & protection of rights.