Thiruvananthapuram: In connection with Reading Month observance, ‘Koottu’, an organization engaged in providing assistance to blind/partially-blind students, has launched a one-month-long programme titled ‘Mozhi’ to help them enjoy short stories, novels and poetry.
Through ‘Mozhi’, the volunteers of Koottu aims to collect voice records of stories, short stories, and poems from the people from various walks of the society and thereby open up the world of fiction to their blind members.
Anyone can send the records of their favourite stories, short stories, and poems using their mobile phone recorders. People can either mail us audio files, which are three to four minutes long, or can submit them after transferring them in CDs or pen drives. We will donate it with the sender’s name in it,” said Febini M Joseph, managing trustee of Koottu.

Since we are coordinating with Kerala Federation of Blind we already have many audio recordings of old books, thus we prefer modern books and writings of new authors,” added Febini.

According to Koottu treasurer Sijin, the charitable trust was launched two years ago with a mission to find suitable scribes for the blind/partially blind students of University College, Thiruvananthapuram, which now have around 700 student volunteers and 50 blind students from four colleges across the capital city and two colleges in Kottayam.

“Initially we started building a network of students who are ready to voluntarily work as scribes. Now, Koottu have many projects for empowering differently-abled people such as ‘Aksharam’ that provide free coaching for PSC exams, UGC NET and other competitive examinations; ‘Oppam’ that provides travel assistance; ‘Voice Bank’ that provides audio recordings of text books and ‘Scribe Bank’ that provides scribes, said Sijin.
Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/mozhi-project-to-open-up-world-of-fiction-for-the-blind/articleshow/64688144.cms