It boils down to a person from Turkey

Two weeks after the launch of the Right to Read campaign, IP co-founder Rahul talks about the continuing source of his inspiration amidst the organizational madness that his life has been engulfed in. A moving personal account.

Over the last few weeks, I have had sleepless nights trying to organize the Right to Read Campaign, coordinating policy research and preparing a presentation for a conference in Seattle on Disability and Technology in the Developing World. I started wondering why I got myself into this Inclusive Planet thing when I could have lived my life peacefully as a copyright lawyer.

Then came the email from Soner Boun. For non-Planeteers, Soner Boun is a person with visual impairment from Turkey who started using Bookbole. His mail said he was so happy after he heard the news of bookbole, and that we should translate bookbole into Turkish since there are many blind people in Turkey and “and to benefit from this treasure is their right too”.

That email goes to the heart of why I am a part of Inclusive Planet – to make peoples lives better using technology.

The Right to Read Campaign aims to achieve the same thing, make the lives of millions of persons with print impairment better. There is a personal motivation here for me as well. I was lucky enough that my disability did not prevent my access to NLS Bangalore, enabled me to work across the country etc. But if my situation was different and I was in a wheelchair I would not have been able to physically access the Law School campus and my life would have been very different.

The issue is simple – access. For me it is access to buildings and for persons with Print Impairment, it is access to books. The consequences of the lack of access are the same – exclusion from all aspects of society. And the interesting thing is that people instantly get the problem when they interact with someone who has access issues. This is very encouraging for the Right to Read Campaign and I believe that each person that we are able to reach will endorse the Campaign.

So go do your bit, support the campaign and change lives. Also, thank you Soner for the kind words.