Businessman aiming to provide computers to visually-impaired students

Prominent business executive, Dr Leslie Chin has teamed up with his son, who is based in Canada, to establish a hub that would see them collecting and refurbishing laptop computers for the benefit of visually-impaired students in Guyana, including the blind.
The initiative would target donors both here in Guyana and in Canada.
The hub was established after it was explained to Dr Chin, on behalf of the blind community, that being the owner of a computer was an essential component to

bridge the communication gap that existed between the blind and sighted world.
It was further highlighted that the computer has made learning, research, employment, social interaction and so on, much easier for persons who were visually impaired. Prior to the advent of the Jobs Access With Speech (JAWS) software, it was extremely difficult for persons who are visually impaired to communicate with the sighted world.
The computers received by the hub would be refurbished and equipped with the JAWS software to enable text-to-speech conversion for the benefit of the blind user. The refurbished JAWS-enabled laptops would be given mainly to persons with vision disabilities that are on the path of academic or professional development. Dr Chin and his family made the first donation of a laptop to the Guyana Society for the Blind to benefit the organisation’s Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) Programme. The donation was made in response to the need that arose as a result of the theft of the computer system that was being used for the programme by armed bandits, who stormed the organisation’s headquarters earlier this year. Persons wishing to donate to the computer hub can call (592) 226-5551 for more information.