Bangla eSpeak training with NVDA
The NVDA team conducted an eSpeak training in Bangla on December 19 and 20, 2014 at Blind Empowerment Foundation (BEA) in Kolkata.
The host BEA, had invited 15 teachers and Computer trainers from all across Kolkata and 1 participant was from NAB Jamshedpur. The event was ably supported by two volunteers who helped in the Bengali typing.
The event began with the round of introductions of the participants. The participants also expressed various reasons for participating in the workshop during the introduction. This was than followed by introduction to NVDA and the importance of an Open Source software compared to piracy.
Out of the 15 participants, only two of the participants were using NVDA in their daily use. Hence the session began with the installation of NVDA and its basic configurations and settings. This was followed by the installation of eSpeak and a demonstration was given as to how to use eSpeak for different language options.
Participants were also shown the different advantages of NVDA, in comparison to other screen readers. This demonstration was received very well by most of the participants, as they had never expected NVDA to perform as well.
The post lunch session was dedicated to reading in Bengali. Each participant was given a word file containing current news items in Bengali. The participants started understanding the eSpeak TTS, but showed some reservations regarding its voice. It was explained in detail the reason for the same and why it was important to introduce NVDA with eSpeak to their students at the initial stage of their training in computers.
The host were very generous in their arrangements for lunch and other refreshments. All the participants enjoyed the hospitality, which included a generous serving of the Bengali fish.
Day 2 started with solving querries from day 1 and than typing was introduced using the Bengali Varnmala typing method. Participants were very receptive to this method and were able to type small sentences withing a few minutes. The volunteers who were helping with the typing also emphasized on special words which included special characters.
The post lunch session was dedicated to problem solving and introduction to various Aids and Appliances. The participants were also informed about the ADIP scheme and the appliances available under it.
The workshop was concluded with a round of photos and thanks from the trainers and the hosts.
