Chennai, 21 December 2024: EY India has partnered with the National Association for the Blind (NAB) to create over 600 audiobooks, aiming to benefit more than 1,00,000 people with visual impairment across India. The initiative is part of EY Ripples program, where EY employees devote their time to SDG-focused projects, bringing together their combined skills, knowledge and experience to positively impact wider sections of the society.
Named ‘Talking Books’, this is the second edition of the initiative by EY Ripples team in collaboration with NAB to enable enhanced availability of learning resources for the personal development of several members of the visually impaired community. As part of the initiative, EY employees will record over 40,000 pages for the audiobooks in a period of one month.
There are an estimated 5 million blind people in India (0.36% of the total population), 35 million people visually impaired (2.55%), and 0.24 million blind children in India. People with visual impairment lack access to adequate learning resources and audio books are therefore a crucial learning tool for them.
Reflecting on the overwhelming employee response to the program, Arti Dua, National Talent Leader, EY India, said, “Initiatives like Talking Books allow us to empower differently abled, ensuring everyone has access to the resources they need to learn and grow. The overwhelming response from our employees reflects not just a shared purpose but a collective action towards making a meaningful impact where it matters the most. We are committed to expanding our efforts and introducing new initiatives that uphold our shared purpose.”
Talking about the initiative, Prashant Ranjan Verma, General Secretary of National Association for The Blind said, “It gives us immense joy that such a large number of EY India employees have come forward to help enrich our library. This unique resource-building effort holds the potential to benefit the visually impaired community at large, making a meaningful difference in their lives.”
In India, the EY Ripples community has grown to over 4,000 volunteers and continues to expand. Over the past four years, these volunteers have positively impacted over 11.5 million lives through various initiatives around education, cleanliness drives, plantation drives, etc.