Zoom-In Project

Over the course of September, members of the LEO Club of BAC have been working together with the Malaysian Association for the Blind (MAB) to assist them in the preparations of books and materials for the visually impaired.

The project was conducted from the 7th to the 23rd of September involving both physical and online volunteering,

The Malaysian Association for the Blind (MAB) was established in 1951, to look after the social welfare and needs of the blind community in Malaysia.

Beginning their outreach in Kuala Lumpur, they have since expanded their services to all over the country.

MAB works to raise awareness, provide opportunities for the visually impaired, and educate the community to prevent avoidable blindness.

Volunteers who participated virtually offered their typing services, transcribing pages of books and other materials from video recordings.

These were all compiled into word documents for the inspection of Ms. Farah, who is in charge of the organisation.

These documents were to be used for future translation into braille, helping to expand the collection of literature available to the blind and visually impaired community.

Those who attended physically were tasked with helping to calculate braille loans and aiding MAB staff with the publication of braille textbooks.

Making financial aid and learning accessible to the blind and visually impaired community is a vital step in empowering them.

They helped MAB's braille typists by reading pages of the relevant texts aloud, and identified mistakes in existing braille texts.

When these services were not required, volunteers helped to take stock of the contents in MAB's library, and calculate braille papers.

Braille opens up the world of language, grammar, and imagination to the blind and visually impaired community. It's power to make literature accessible is invaluable.

As such, the Zoom-In Project recognises the necessity of giving back to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy reading and learning, and we hope to continue working with the MAB.