The Unseen of Mongolia
Pedestrian friendliness within Ulaanbaatar is not without its hazards and in fact becomes an obstacle course reminiscent of a mine field.
If any astronaut wishes to experience moon walking, a cheap alternative would be a stroll into, or for that matter a giant leap over the prolific amount of potholes and craters littering the city.
It becomes even more arduous with spring downfalls filling these modern dinosaur foot prints like an Olympic size swimming pool that not even Sir Walter Raleigh’s cape could squelch.
Shop fronts with entrance steps the size of Gulliver’s boots amasses considerable effort to get a leg over, and certainly a worry of aggravating that hernia makes it even more like scaling Everest.
A non conformity of pedestrian walkways designed no doubt by oblivious car owners are littered with makeshift stalls selling paraphernalia of goods which are positioned to halt your progress at every second step.
Not even a real life zebra setting hooves’ on her name sake would be spared the arduous life threatening road crossing. Pedestrian traffic lights offer little hope with the red man obviously telling you to stay put, whilst the green man is asking are you sure?
It’s bad enough for able bodied individuals negotiating these gyps, but pays a thought for a blind person.
Have you ever seen a blind person out and about the streets of Ulaanbaatar? With the World Health Organisation estimating that there are 161 million visually impaired people in the world, its shouldn’t surprise you to identify that minimal estimates put the figure in Mongolia at 130,000.
It becomes incomprehensible to countenance how on earth these blind and partially sighted individuals could cope though the streets of Ulaanbaatar. Those pedestrian traffic lights have no warning sounds, blockades zigzag the pavements and shops offer little if none of the disabled friendliness sorely needed.
Tsengel Maidar is a delightful associate of 29 years whom lost total sight at the age of seven. He explains it was due to a disease that could have easily been treated. Today he is totally blind, meaning the complete lack of form and visual light perception. This plucky young man revels in our weekly meetings and listens with absolute interest to my conversation. Stevie Wonder glasses hide scrutiny to his quagmire yet this diminutive guy, full of joy and wisdom recants the difficulties he faces.
He lives with his Mother in an apartment with no alterations for every day accessibility and aid for making life easier. An inadequate MNT52,000 per month disability allowance is all he receives for his ills. Living far away from the centre creates humongous difficulties for him.
“I have a one hour bus journey each day and getting on with the hustle and bustle causes much confusion for me” he says. Having a white cane brings a tiny amount of aid, but the high platforms on buses and rarely being offered a seat is an acceptable circumstance he deals with.
Tsengel informs me “I got robbed once, standing holding the rail on the bus, my phone was snatched and there was absolutely nothing I could do”.
This remarkable young man counters his difficulties by working with the DAISY Book program. The DAISY Digital Talking Book is a collection of files that provides an accessible representation of a printed book for individuals who are blind or visually-impaired. These files usually contain digital audio recordings of a human speech recorded by volunteers here in Mongolia. Tsengel is responsible for organizing the DAISY program but finding willing participants to read is a constant battle.
The program is funded by EIFL in collaboration with Mongolian Consortium of Libraries.
EIFL enables access to knowledge through libraries in developing and transition countries. They are an international non-profit organisation based in Europe with a global network of partners. Founded in 1999, EIFL began by campaigning for affordable access to commercial e-journals for academic and research libraries in Central and Eastern Europe.
Short for Digital Accessible Information System, DAISY is technology that creates digital talking books from analogue audio or text. The main advantage of DAISY over more traditional analogue audio formats is that the user can navigate, making it possible to re-visit sections of books or papers, to move around in the text and to cross-refer when doing research.
Navigation is extremely difficult in analogue formats, which necessitate linear listening and where you can only go backwards and forwards. The audio recordings are downloaded on to a special device known as The BookSense. It is a DAISY player which has an OLED screen that allows users to access information for education and entertainment with a built-in text to speech engine.
Looking somewhat like a bulky mobile phone, blind and partially sighted people can enjoy newspapers, their favorite novels and even their favorite music while being given information of chapters, sections, paragraphs and pages.
The structure of the book is designated by the XML tags and is accessible to the reader by use of a browser or a playback device. The Book Sense utilizes the technology of the Internet with some specialized applications added to provide greatly improved access to the information. However, theses devises don’t come cheap, and cost upwards of $400 dollars each, thus there are very few of them in circulation within Mongolia.
Tsengel was lucky enough to be given a Book Sense presented to him by EIFL for his tireless work in helping others like himself. Personally I would be astounded if some of you reading this article would be willing to purchase one of these devices and present it to one of the 10,000 blind and visually impaired Mongolians living here. Now wouldn’t that be worthwhile and proactive?
With EIFL support, the library has set up a recording studio and has purchased 40 Book Sense portable DAISY players. These have been distributed to 21 libraries – one in each province of Mongolia – and to five organizations that are based in Ulaanbaatar, and which serve the blind.
“For three years prior to working on the Daisy project, I was employed by the Mongolian Federation of the Blind as an IT teacher for blind people” Tsengel tells me. This voluntary organisations Braille and Talking Book Publishing Center was formally established on February 19th 2004. It aims to improve access to education and information for the blind. It comprises two units: the Braille Publishing Unit and Talking Book studio.
The Braille department publishes books in Braille using specialist equipment, and the Talking Book studio records and duplicates spoken word CDs and tapes. The Braille publishing department focuses mainly on English language books and Mongolian legislation, while the Talking Book section focuses on history, literature and broad educational areas such as law.
The Braille and Talking Book Publishing Center supplies the library at the School for Blind Children and the Natsagdorj Metropolitan Library as well as blind people in urban and rural areas such as Suhbaatar, Darhan-Uul and Tuv provinces, mainly through its local branches. The eventual intent is to facilitate access to these products to all handicapped people in Mongolia.
Toady you can find Tsengel beavering away at the Ulaanbaatar public library, located by the circus in the section for the blind.
Forlornly he tells me in his delightful way, “Mr. Sean, I’m trying everything to assist my fellow blind people here in Mongolia, but they just wont come to the library and use the material and get help because they are too scared to venture into our streets. With the speeding traffic and inadequate pedestrian infrastructure, it becomes a dangerous and frightening experience, therefore so many just choose to stay at home”.
We are all aware how the city reflects some hazardous attitudes to driving and getting about, but can you imagine what it’s like for a blind person?..... Well can you?...... I surely hope I and this remarkable young man have opened your eyes just a little.
If any astronaut wishes to experience moon walking, a cheap alternative would be a stroll into, or for that matter a giant leap over the prolific amount of potholes and craters littering the city.
It becomes even more arduous with spring downfalls filling these modern dinosaur foot prints like an Olympic size swimming pool that not even Sir Walter Raleigh’s cape could squelch.
Shop fronts with entrance steps the size of Gulliver’s boots amasses considerable effort to get a leg over, and certainly a worry of aggravating that hernia makes it even more like scaling Everest.
A non conformity of pedestrian walkways designed no doubt by oblivious car owners are littered with makeshift stalls selling paraphernalia of goods which are positioned to halt your progress at every second step.
Not even a real life zebra setting hooves’ on her name sake would be spared the arduous life threatening road crossing. Pedestrian traffic lights offer little hope with the red man obviously telling you to stay put, whilst the green man is asking are you sure?
It’s bad enough for able bodied individuals negotiating these gyps, but pays a thought for a blind person.
Have you ever seen a blind person out and about the streets of Ulaanbaatar? With the World Health Organisation estimating that there are 161 million visually impaired people in the world, its shouldn’t surprise you to identify that minimal estimates put the figure in Mongolia at 130,000.
It becomes incomprehensible to countenance how on earth these blind and partially sighted individuals could cope though the streets of Ulaanbaatar. Those pedestrian traffic lights have no warning sounds, blockades zigzag the pavements and shops offer little if none of the disabled friendliness sorely needed.
Tsengel Maidar is a delightful associate of 29 years whom lost total sight at the age of seven. He explains it was due to a disease that could have easily been treated. Today he is totally blind, meaning the complete lack of form and visual light perception. This plucky young man revels in our weekly meetings and listens with absolute interest to my conversation. Stevie Wonder glasses hide scrutiny to his quagmire yet this diminutive guy, full of joy and wisdom recants the difficulties he faces.
He lives with his Mother in an apartment with no alterations for every day accessibility and aid for making life easier. An inadequate MNT52,000 per month disability allowance is all he receives for his ills. Living far away from the centre creates humongous difficulties for him.
“I have a one hour bus journey each day and getting on with the hustle and bustle causes much confusion for me” he says. Having a white cane brings a tiny amount of aid, but the high platforms on buses and rarely being offered a seat is an acceptable circumstance he deals with.
Tsengel informs me “I got robbed once, standing holding the rail on the bus, my phone was snatched and there was absolutely nothing I could do”.
This remarkable young man counters his difficulties by working with the DAISY Book program. The DAISY Digital Talking Book is a collection of files that provides an accessible representation of a printed book for individuals who are blind or visually-impaired. These files usually contain digital audio recordings of a human speech recorded by volunteers here in Mongolia. Tsengel is responsible for organizing the DAISY program but finding willing participants to read is a constant battle.
The program is funded by EIFL in collaboration with Mongolian Consortium of Libraries.
EIFL enables access to knowledge through libraries in developing and transition countries. They are an international non-profit organisation based in Europe with a global network of partners. Founded in 1999, EIFL began by campaigning for affordable access to commercial e-journals for academic and research libraries in Central and Eastern Europe.
Short for Digital Accessible Information System, DAISY is technology that creates digital talking books from analogue audio or text. The main advantage of DAISY over more traditional analogue audio formats is that the user can navigate, making it possible to re-visit sections of books or papers, to move around in the text and to cross-refer when doing research.
Navigation is extremely difficult in analogue formats, which necessitate linear listening and where you can only go backwards and forwards. The audio recordings are downloaded on to a special device known as The BookSense. It is a DAISY player which has an OLED screen that allows users to access information for education and entertainment with a built-in text to speech engine.
Looking somewhat like a bulky mobile phone, blind and partially sighted people can enjoy newspapers, their favorite novels and even their favorite music while being given information of chapters, sections, paragraphs and pages.
The structure of the book is designated by the XML tags and is accessible to the reader by use of a browser or a playback device. The Book Sense utilizes the technology of the Internet with some specialized applications added to provide greatly improved access to the information. However, theses devises don’t come cheap, and cost upwards of $400 dollars each, thus there are very few of them in circulation within Mongolia.
Tsengel was lucky enough to be given a Book Sense presented to him by EIFL for his tireless work in helping others like himself. Personally I would be astounded if some of you reading this article would be willing to purchase one of these devices and present it to one of the 10,000 blind and visually impaired Mongolians living here. Now wouldn’t that be worthwhile and proactive?
With EIFL support, the library has set up a recording studio and has purchased 40 Book Sense portable DAISY players. These have been distributed to 21 libraries – one in each province of Mongolia – and to five organizations that are based in Ulaanbaatar, and which serve the blind.
“For three years prior to working on the Daisy project, I was employed by the Mongolian Federation of the Blind as an IT teacher for blind people” Tsengel tells me. This voluntary organisations Braille and Talking Book Publishing Center was formally established on February 19th 2004. It aims to improve access to education and information for the blind. It comprises two units: the Braille Publishing Unit and Talking Book studio.
The Braille department publishes books in Braille using specialist equipment, and the Talking Book studio records and duplicates spoken word CDs and tapes. The Braille publishing department focuses mainly on English language books and Mongolian legislation, while the Talking Book section focuses on history, literature and broad educational areas such as law.
The Braille and Talking Book Publishing Center supplies the library at the School for Blind Children and the Natsagdorj Metropolitan Library as well as blind people in urban and rural areas such as Suhbaatar, Darhan-Uul and Tuv provinces, mainly through its local branches. The eventual intent is to facilitate access to these products to all handicapped people in Mongolia.
Toady you can find Tsengel beavering away at the Ulaanbaatar public library, located by the circus in the section for the blind.
Forlornly he tells me in his delightful way, “Mr. Sean, I’m trying everything to assist my fellow blind people here in Mongolia, but they just wont come to the library and use the material and get help because they are too scared to venture into our streets. With the speeding traffic and inadequate pedestrian infrastructure, it becomes a dangerous and frightening experience, therefore so many just choose to stay at home”.
We are all aware how the city reflects some hazardous attitudes to driving and getting about, but can you imagine what it’s like for a blind person?..... Well can you?...... I surely hope I and this remarkable young man have opened your eyes just a little.
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