What you (don’t) see is (more than) what you get

Greetings!
 
 We’ve already celebrated the “magnifier.”
 
 This is the equipment we bought for the visually impaired children at the boarding school in Molodzyechna, Belarus.

But now that it’s installed and working, the staffers there are finding that it’s even more fabulous.
 
 This machine also helps totally blind children — by reading text to them.
 
 In fact, as you’ll see in this little 69-second video, a blind child can listen to the text on headphones while a visually impaired child simultaneously READS the text, enlarged and highlighted, on the screen.

(At about 50 seconds, the camera seems to drop — this is just a momentary video problem, as the staffer helps the child get his headphones on.)

When I first saw this video, I honestly thought I was hearing a staff person reading to the child.
 But no, that’s THE MACHINE reading aloud. In beautiful, perfect Russian.
 Pretty amazing.

I cannot fully express my thanks to all those who gave so graciously and generously to provide this incredible device to the blind and partially blind children of Molodzyechna.
 
 There is no possible way they could have ever experienced such a phenomenal luxury — in their culture, in their economy — without the vision and the open-heartedness of friends like you.
 
 THANK YOU! GOD BLESS YOU!

Much love,
 
 Doug Brendel