Dr Mathew's Address

Coffee table books were created as books that showcased photographs and or paintings of a topic in a format that allowed guests to skim through the pages and enjoy light reading while they were being entertained by the host or as conversation starters. The key feature of these books was the large pictorial format with minimal text. The format and design therefore have been unfriendly to all those low vision and visually impaired persons. No one thought about the exclusion of all visually impaired from this domain of social activity. While everyone talks about inclusivity as a society, we have so many such cultural and social blind spots. How do we overcome this?

Does a coffee table book have to deal with nature, art, history or geography or can it be a visual narrative of a social activity? This book is designed to challenge some of these narratives and is a unique attempt at inclusivity. This has been done by a pictorial narrative of the evolution of the reach of an NGO, CURE India, from one state in India to all the states of India to reach out to children born with a birth defect and work to prevent disability from clubfoot. The book is unique as it uses the technology of Near field communication and QR codes to access a narrative of what is depicted as well as describe the story of CURE India in its efforts using text-to-audio format. Until now only Braille was the medium for this kind of communication, but the use of technology has simplified this. This effort by the team from CURE India and from Maitreyi College is indeed a laudable effort at inclusivity. The way pictures from all the states in India have been juxtaposed with activities of CURE India is a refreshingly new approach where storytelling is combined with milestones of achievement at the same time linking it with the history and culture of the state.
I wish this approach and line of thinking is used and made available widely to benefit all those visually impaired people out there. It was my idea to make Art Accessible which has led to an Accessible Photo Exhibition and an Accessible Coffee Table book which would benefit lots of Persons with Visual Disability. Congratulations to the entire team, especially the students and Dr Smriti from Maitreyi College, and Andrews from CURE India for all his technical inputs.
 
Dr Mathew Varghese
Chairman & Founder Trustee,
CURE India