Volunteering In Honduras: My Experience

 
I just finished a five week visit to Honduras for the holiday season. As a part of that visit, I spent one week volunteering for an institution serving the blind. It was a lot of fun, even though I was suffering with some kind of flue like illness. I provided training to the technology teacher on JAWS, Duxbury and Zoomtext. We also connected a twenty-year-old refreshable Braille display that as donated but no one knew how to connect to the computer. The experience made me realize that we define assistive technology in the United States as providing the person who is blind with the right combination of hardware and software but we do not always consider how they might survive without it or consider what the backup plan is if the assistive technology isn't available. As Assistive Technology Specialists, we have to be well-versed in low tech assistive technology solutions that could allow the person who is blind to complete the tasks independently. I was surprised just how much the blind institution provides with so little resources.

 
The highlight of my volunteer experience was the last day when I installed a new motherboard for their Index Everest D V4. First of all, I have to thank the people at Index IRIE-AT. They sent me a new motherboard and once it arrived, we began the huge scary task of replacing it. They connected with me on video skype and we slowly walked through the entire process of replacing the motherboard. There was a lot riding on this repair. The institution received the embosser from the embassy of Japan to allow them to receive a Honduran government contract to emboss the children's basic school book for learning Spanish. If this embosser could not be repaired, the books would not get produced and they would not get the payment from the government that they badly needed to fund their programs. My hands were shaking and there was no air conditioning so I was sweating, it kept dripping down my forehead and getting in my eyes. I did not want to touch it and get any moisture on my hands so another lady was there whiping my face. The technology teacher was holding my laptop and pointing the camera so the representative at IRIE-AT could see what we were doing and we could see exactly what he was doing. The motherboard swap took over three hours. I felt like a surgeon doing a heart transplant. When we turned on that embosser and it spoke in Spanish "Index Everest D V4 ready", I have never felt so much relief and released so much anxiety. The cost of failure was so high and so many people were counting on my success. The Columbian distributor was not interested in helping here because they wouldn't get paid and the entire grant from the embassy of Japan was used for the purchase of the embosser. When looking at grants for the developing world, some percentage of the grant has to go in to the up-keep of the purchase, especially something as complicated as an embosser. I only have a few more days' in-country before returning to the United States but wanted to relate what it is like to provide vital assistive technology services like this in the developing world.