What do Chess, Madhubani and Java have in common? Vision-Aid of course!

Vision-Aid is a nonprofit organization that provides a comprehensive range of devices, training, and services for the visually disadvantaged. In 2021, Vision-Aid formed the Council of Ambassadors, a new body in its leadership team, which would encourage local community engagement in the cause. Several community organizers and youth participated enthusiastically in support of new initiatives to support its mission of “Enable-Educate -Empower the Visually Impaired” through a range of different community and youth initiatives.

Vision-Aid conducted four workshops in 2021 under the guidance of Monika Manocha Wadhwa who joined Vision-Aid leadership team as one of the co-chairs of the Council of Ambassadors, in July 2021. With the support of many other local community volunteers including Hiral Desai, Paresh Motiwala, Anuja Das and others, Monika and team conducted the first in a series of innovative fund-raisers which also engaged local youth in engaging workshops, keeping them engaged and learning over summer vacations and the winter break.

Vision-Aid very first chess workshop was initiated with the help of Ronak Wakhlu, a Sophomore at Lexington High School. Ronak gave a start to these workshops through his Online Summer Chess camp for Beginners which was conducted for three days and was attended by students from age 7-13 from various towns. The camp was a great success. Ronak continued his mission of supporting Vision-Aid and conducted a Winter Chess Camp for Intermediate level in December where the students age 9-15 joined. Ronak plans to run more camps in 2022. During this workshop students got the opportunity to interact with Samarth Saxena, one of Vision-Aid's amazing visually impaired students. Samarth explained how visually impaired people plays chess to the chess camp participants. You can see the video here - https://youtu.be/gX5sAuj_fjw

Vision-Aid also conducted a “Madhubani Art workshop” lead by Chaitrali Yadav.  This two-day workshop was conducted in November and was attended by all age groups. This workshop covered few border patterns and motifs of Madhubani Art and completed the famous painting “Tree of Life”. Feedback has been very positive, and participants thoroughly enjoyed the workshops.

Vision-Aid also started a Java programming workshop this year which was conducted in December and lead by Anya and Zubin Gupta, 13-year-old twins from Lexington, who founded their non-profit, The Twynphony Hopes Foundation Inc. as they discovered their passion in the non-profit world. They joined hand with Vision-Aid this year and conducted two-day workshop and this workshop was very successful and was attended by students age 10-16 year. Participants enjoyed the coding experience and Arya and Zubin have also pledged continued support to Vision-Aid. 

The Vision-Aid team is very thankful to all the supporters of Vision-Aid who donated time and helped to raise valuable funds to support Vision-Aid’s mission and programs. This is a Win-Win for Vision-Aid and the participants, and not only are these events shaping up to be “fund raisers” for the cause but they also serve as “fun raisers” in the local community giving community and youth more opportunities to volunteer, engage, give and serve.

About Vision-Aid

Vision-Aid is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established in 2004 and is based in Lexington, MA. Its mission is to enable, educate and empower the visually impaired to live with independence and dignity. Vision-Aid offers dozens of programs freely to the visually impaired through its centers in India, or online. Vision-Aid partners with some of the best-known organizations in India, to realize its mission jointly.

More information about Vision-Aid can be found at: 

https://visionaid.org  (Global web site) 

https://visionaidindia.org  (India web site) 

People interested in more information can email info@visionaid.org or call 781-333-5252

A list of all the freely available training resources offered virtually can be found at The Vision-Aid Online Academy (VOA) at https://training.visionaid.org 

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