New Delhi, March 5 (IANS) A website to create awareness among the blind and people with low vision has been launched here. The NGO, which took the initiative, claims that the portal is the first of its kind in the country.
The website www.eyeway.org provides information on eye disorders, services, education, rehabilitation, parenting, legal provisions, recreation and career guidance to the blind people.

“The website has been specially designed to create awareness among the visually-impaired people on issues related to them. The problem with the blind people is not their blindness, but the thinking and attitude of their families, the society and of themselves,” said George Abraham, head of the NGO Score Foundation, during the launch of the website here Wednesday.

The portal is dynamic and has special accessibility features such as choice of background, font colour, text only options and dynamic search functions. It has three sections - informs, inspires and includes, for the wholesome information requirements of the blind.

The website enables the user to navigate with the help of magnification and talking software. The software has been bought at a cost of $800 from the US.

“We are continuously researching for information that is inspirational and empowering visually impaired people, besides looking for opportunities of reaching out to more and more people,” said Abraham, who is also the chairman of Association for Cricket for the Blind in India.

The NGO also runs a radio programme in Hindi, which is broadcast from 30 stations of All India Radio. There is also a helpdesk at the foundation that receives calls related to various issues that concern the blind people.

There are over 16 million blind people in the country and a further 28 million are with low vision.