Institute for the Blind taking smartphone donations for the visually impaired

The Canadian National Institute for the Blind has launched a program called Phone it Forward to help provide visually-impaired Canadians with a smartphone.

The program aims to help the roughly 500,000 Canadians with limited or no vision through the use of a modern smartphone.

“My smartphone is my most important tool when it comes to living the independent, connected life I want,” said Wayne Henshall, an employee at the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB), in a recent interview with the CBC.

According to the CBC, 46 percent of Canadians who are blind don’t have a smartphone that includes the modern accessibility features necessary to be helpful in their daily lives.

Visually-impaired people can use smartphones to read small text, identify items in the real world, text-to-speech technology and more, according to the CBC.

Users can donate their old phones at phoneitforward.ca. Users can even get a prepaid envelope for free online. When a phone first arrives it gets wiped by Fixt Wireless Repair.

Once the phone is refreshed, it’s re-filled with accessibility-focused apps and given to a Canadian with vision problems. The final step is to teach the device’s new owner how to use the phone and the accessibility apps.

Anyone who donates receives a tax receipt in the mail, according to the CNIB.

Source: Canadian National Institute for the Blind Via: The CBC

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