The Lviv regional branch of the NGO “Ukrainian Union of People with Disabilities – USI” is completing the “Saving book: audiobooks and books in Braille” project, with the support of the Abilis Foundation (Finland). Thanks to this, they printed in Braille and in a universal design, as well as voiced new books in a total number of 360 copies.
In particular, these are books:
· “White Christmas. Works of classics of world literature” in 2 volumes;
· “Mystery of Christmas” in the 1st volume;
· “Christmas stories” in 3 volumes.
“The total number of produced books reached 360 copies. They were published by the Resource Center of the Lviv Polytechnic, funds for the purchase of consumables were provided by the Abilis Foundation. All these books were sent to blind children in different parts of Ukraine, to many Ukrainian special schools for children with visual impairments (Kharkiv, Odesa, Kyiv, Cherkasy, Svitlovodsk, Klevan, Mukachevo, Samhorodok, Zaporizhzhia, etc.), to individual public libraries of Ukraine (National Library for children, etc.), the central special library of UTOS in Kyiv, rehabilitation centers in various cities of Ukraine, the brailem.com online library.
Each book has 3 levels of access, which is especially convenient for children with different categories of disabilities: audio, flat print, braille. All books contain a QR code with an audio version of the printed text, placed in a tactile frame on the back of the front title for ease of finding by blind children, as well as relief and primarily colored drawings illustrating the plots of each of the three books. These drawings can be “seen” by touch, besides, each of them has a text description detailing all the characters and colors,” says Oksana Potymko, project manager.
18 children aged 8 to 15 from different parts of Ukraine were involved in the recording of audio books, 15 of whom are children with disabilities (mostly blind or with complex disabilities), as well as 35 actors of Lviv theaters, vocal artists, TV presenters and journalists, musicians , teachers. A total of 53 announcers, including children, worked on the creation of audio books. Yaroslav Nudyk, an artist of the VF “Picardiyska tertsiya” managed the sound recording process, who in parallel held acting master classes for children and helped them achieve the desired artistic effect during recording in the studio.
All audiobooks are converted into a special DAISY format, which has the function of navigating through a voiced book, and are freely available on the resource http://daisy-ukr.svefi.net/download/.
You can get the book in Lviv at the Resource Center of the Lviv Polytechnic (Mitropolita Andreya St., 3, room 39) or at the Lviv Special School No. 100 for visually impaired children. In other regions of Ukraine, you should contact special schools or order delivery of books on the website http://brailem.com/.
Detailed information about the project and all its participants can be found on the website https://usi.org.ua/ in the “Culture” category.