Hear The Blind Spot
About the CSO
Together! is an Ethiopian disability and development organisation, committed to holistic educational, professional, psycho-social and material support for visually impaired people in Ethiopia.
The team
Clockwise from top left: Fasica (journalist, Ethiopia), Awoke (CSO representative, Ethiopia), Emmanuel (developer, Tanzania), Nora (designer, Egypt), Valentina (team leader, designer, Italy), Kim (developer, Germany), Woubakal (CSO representative, Ethiopia), Ella (data journalist, UK)
About the topic
In Ethiopia 1 in 20 people have a visual impairment and they are disproportionately affected by social, economic and now digital exclusion. This is due to insufficient ICT training, inaccessible websites, and limited access to the tools and resources they need (e.g. screen readers).
A look at the data
With the help of Data4Change Together! created and conducted a survey in May 2019 which was answered by 276 visually impaired Ethiopians about their access to technology, education and employment and their feelings of social exclusion.
In addition to this the team collected open data on the prevalence of blindness across the world and over time from the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness as well as the World Bank.
Their objectives
How can we tell the story of digital exclusion in Ethiopia to raise awareness about Together! and their cause, reach existing and new donors, improve technologies and digital accessibility?
ResultsIn the past Together! has not been able to do a lot of advocacy work, but since the new government came into power this is changing. They wanted to take this opportunity to create an advocacy campaign that could be used inside Ethiopia and also be used to raise awareness about this issue internationally to a digital audience.
Hear the Blind Spot is available in English and Amharic.
Some initial mock-ups and prototypes which included paper prototypes of braille.
Impact
Hear The Blind Spot was launched at the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa in Addis Ababa in September 2019. There was a live performance of the project with one of Together!’s visually impaired beneficiaries reading Desta’s story and a flute player playing the data sonification. Sighted members of the audience at the conference were given eye masks so that they could empathise and better understand the power of sound.
In the spring of 2020 Together! will be running a series of live performances in schools in Ethiopia of Hear The Blind Spot (this has been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and will take place once it is deemed safe to do so). The digital campaign is continuous both inside Ethiopia and internationally.