I’m delighted to share with you today a wonderful success story from our Volunteer Program. UC Santa Cruz students who participated in our volunteer pilot project—proofreading textbooks for our Bookshare collection—have done a fantastic job proofreading over a short period of time three entire textbooks! This means more than 2,300 pages of text and an amazing gift for the 250,000+ Bookshare student members we serve.
The Nominet Trust, a United Kingdom leading social tech funder, included Bookshare, our Global Literacy initiative, on its list of 100 global ventures using digital technology to solve some of the world’s biggest social problems. “It’s a life-changing service” for those with visual impairments or other print disabilities, states the Bookshare listing on the Nominet Trust 100.
I’m delighted to share here how we’re able to improve the lives of people, at home and in Sub-Saharan Africa, with support from the Android donation program—a fantastic social initiative from Google. To date, we’ve received several hundred used, fully functional Android phones and tablets from the program for deployment across our Human Rights and Global Literacy programs. Thanks to these phones, we’re able to put our software-for-good applications directly in the hands of individuals who face difficult challenges and for whom the availability of such devices makes a big difference.
The U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor and Statistics estimated earlier this year that about 3 million veterans, or 14 percent of the total veteran population, had a service-connected disability. For veterans with visual impairments, traumatic brain injuries or other disabilities, reading standard print is difficult, if not impossible. For them, Bookshare opens up a lifeline to reading. Today through Friday, November 22nd, you can give disabled veterans the gift of reading via Bookshare by joining Benetech’s Bookshare for Veterans crowdfunding campaign.
On the evening of March 28, 2006, an improvised explosive device (IED) hit Staff Sergeant Jay Wilkerson’s Humvee, which was part of a convoy heading from Habbaniyah, Iraq, back to Baghdad. It turned out that Jay suffered from hemianopsia, a loss of half of the visual field. For Jay and scores of other veterans with service-related disabilities, reading standard print can be difficult, if not impossible. For them, Bookshare—our Global Literacy initiative and the world’s largest accessible digital library for people with qualified print disabilities—opens a lifeline to reading. If you are looking for a way to make a real difference in honor of Veterans Day, please support our Bookshare for Veterans crowdfunding campaign and give veterans the gift of reading.
