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Internet Access and Training Program (IATP)
Disabled and Impaired Turkmen Find Outlets Online
IATP trainer Tatyana Novruzova (CI 02) explaining
function of keyboard combinations
The Internet provides a unique opportunity for citizens with different abilities to come together in a safe, permissive, and equal environment. IATP centers throughout Turkmenistan have been equipping handicapped citizens with the technology skills to tap into this outlet, which will help them integrate into the global community. IATP efforts opened new perspectives for professional development and employment, and also made Turkmen society aware of their problems and achievements through collaboration with local media.
IT Training Series for the Blind
Visually impaired members of the Turkmen Association for the Blind and Deaf (TABD) received a unique opportunity to gain computer skills during IATP training for the blind in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. From February 2 to 21 the group learned to use the speech reading software Jaws 7.0 for Windows, mastered the method of sightless typing and learned to work with a speech synthesizer, which reproduces the actions of a blind user on the computer. Today, TABD consists of more than 560 blind and visually impaired citizens who have never had the opportunity to work on with a computer. The IATP course gave them opportunity to feel equal with their sighted peers, and has helped them develop them into a more qualified work force. Kerim Aydogdiyev, a 35 year-old blind man who now intends to work as computer operator in the TABD studio of sound books remarked, “I never assumed that a blind person could work on a computer. I am proud that I became one of the first blind people in Turkmenistan who made breakthrough to the world of modern technologies.” IATP will host more advanced courses on MS Office and Internet use for the TABD trainees in March.
Web Portal for Disabled Athletes
Turkmen society is learning about outstanding disabled athletes of their country who are opening new possibilities for the social and professional development of themselves and other physically challenged sportsmen using information technology. On February 12, 28 media representatives, ECA alumni, high school teachers and physically challenged athletes attended a conference on IATP’s Web Development activities in Turkmenistan hosted by the Alumni Resource Center in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan’s Special Olympics power lifting champions Meylis Karpayev, Esen Artykmuhammedov and Shatlyk Boyarov, presented a new web portal for international relations between physically challenged people called "Preodolenie" (Overcoming) which they developed under the guidance of IATP Web consultant Dina Boyborodina.The portal unites people with the limited physical abilities into one online community and also offers cooperation and professional development (like taking part in the distance learning courses on journalism) opportunities for them. The portal was developed as a result of the online forum for disabled people sponsored by IATP in April 2006 and aimed to find ways to attract international public attention to issues facing people with disabilities, search for opportunities for international collaboration in helping the disabled and create database of disabled people to be posted online. Read more in the June 2006 edition of IATP news.
Meylis Karpayev, winner of a gold medal for Europe and Eurasia in a table tennis championship held in the Czech Republic in 2005, remarked, “I have achieved victories in sport and visited different countries, and I was confident that sport was a unique aspect of my life. But when I found opportunities in Information Technology for myself, I understood that the Internet is a no less important sphere in which I want to succeed.”
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