This summer holiday, I worked on an internship with an NGO called Esha.
So, what is Esha about?
Esha is a non-profit organization management. It is fully volunteer driven. It is an NGO which aids in blind people. When a project starts every year, you can choose what you want to do, there are multiple options such as content contribution where questions are drafted from a textbook and compiled into a document. Then, there is also voice recording where volunteers are given a short story of various languages to record. There are many more sections!
But, they cannot read or write...how do they study like we do?
Blind men and women are not capable of reading books or studying by reading the textbook like we are. So, content contribution volunteers draft questions from a curriculum textbook. Once they are done with that, a specific topic is given to a recording volunteer who then records the questions and answers.
Short stories of different languages are assigned to volunteers who speak the language.
Who came up with the idea of such an NGO?
Ms. Nidhi Arora is the founder of Esha: People for the Blind. She founded it on January 5 in 2005. She is also the founder of the popular daily newspaper for children called 'The Children's Post of India'.
I worked as a Project Manager i.e in the Project Management section. I worked with many other volunteers. When I first started working, I got to know that I was the youngest PM (Project Manager) who had ever worked with Esha. I was glad about this but it also came with a few disadvantages. During the first week or two, I was a bit confused as to what I had to do, but with help of my peers, I got the hang of it. I worked with them for a month and a half and I thoroughly enjoyed my time. Here are some of the details about the responsibilities of a PM:
I was assigned a set of volunteers whom I was communicating with and I had to send out emails every week assigning something to them.
When the deadline of the assignment came, which was Friday, we had to stay on top of people. I called all my volunteers on Thursday to check in on their assignment and ask them if they were comfortable with what they were doing.
A weekly PMO meeting took place on Friday where we would discuss everybody's volunteers and assign them something new. We did this together because we had to maintain an agreement and not repeat an assignment.
I took home many things I learned and personal experiences. I learned from the mistakes I made and saw to it that I did not make them again.
I have given a few links below so that you can get to know about Esha better and perhaps even work them.
Their official website: http://www.clabil.org/
Their blog: https://eshabraille.blogspot.com/
The online audio library which has all the recordings compiled here: http://www.braillecards.org/audio.php
The LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/company/esha---people-for-the-blind/?originalSubdomain=in
The Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/eshabraille
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