It's easy to take a lot of things for granted, especially those of us who have such easy access to the most important things in life. Education is one of those things and while we can moan about boring teachers and homework, there are those who would give anything to have the same education that's so easily available to many. Pond Sinlaparatsamee, a third-year student from the Albert Laurence School of Communication Arts at Assumption University of Thailand is heading a project named "Voice Out", and hopes to raise awareness about the lack of educational audiobooks available for the visually impaired. Guru talks to him about the project and how he hopes the project will benefit the blind.
What is the Voice Out project?
The Voice Out project is a non-profit project started by students from the Public Relations Department at the Albert Laurence School of Communication Arts, Assumption University of Thailand and in cooperation with the Bangkok School for the Blind. The project aims to raise awareness of The Bangkok School for The Blind and how there is an insufficient numbers of educational audiobooks; we also want to create a positive attitude towards the making and use of educational audiobooks. We are currently trying to complete the recording of O-NET audiobooks because everyone is required to take the high school level O-NET tests. We have also done a number of roadshows and events in the past month.
What made you start this?
In my class, we’re required to conduct PR activities for a non-profit organisation. I decided to work with The Bangkok School for The Blind. I found out that educational audiobooks that have been requested by visually impaired students have rarely been made. Besides, most of the volunteers record only entertaining books, such as novels. Yet educational audiobooks are very essential for the blind as they have less opportunities to access a conventional education, so I started this project to raise awareness of this insufficiency in educational audiobooks.
Did you start Voice Out by yourself?
Friends and I started it together. We conducted lots of research before we came up with the idea.
What challenges have you faced?
I’ve faced many. I needed to learn the process of recording audiobooks from my own home without incurring any problems. I also needed to think of how I could get as many people involved in the project as possible.
What do you hope to accomplish with Voice Out?
I hope that eventually people will be more aware that there aren’t enough educational audiobooks out there and that there will soon be more volunteers recording educational audiobooks requested by visually impaired students. They need an education and these educational audiobooks gives them the opportunity to access it.
How can the public support Voice Out?
Everyone can support us by signing up with the project via our Facebook page and participating in the recording of educational audiobooks. Even though the O-NET audiobooks are done, there are still lots of educational audiobooks that are yet to be completed. They can go directly to the Bangkok School for the Blind to help record another educational audiobook.
Visit their FB page at fb.com/VOPROJECT or contact them at voproject.edu@gmail.com for more info.
