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Apply Now: $1 Million to Improve Literacy Tech for Children with Disabilities

By Wayan Vota on July 6, 2020

reading disability grant funding

More than 93 million children globally have a disability, and at least 90 percent of those residing in countries with high poverty levels do not attend school. Each time we exclude them from education opportunities or resources, we lose the impact they could have on their communities and our world.

If we are to realize the ideals of Sustainable Development Goal 4 to provide inclusive and equitable education for all, the learning needs of children with disabilities cannot be overlooked.

$1 Million Literacy Grant Funding

The UnrestrICTed Challenge is a global competition to scale ICT for education solutions. All Children Reading, Grand Challenge for Development (ACR-GCD) can invest $1 million USD in grant funding with organizations that are improving language and literacy for early grade children living with disabilities. for

Sign Up Now for more Grant Funding!

Solutions must be grounded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which is based on the premise that there is great variability in how children learn, and that barriers to learning are in the design of the environment, not in children. UDL supports several modalities for inclusive education, including:

  • Sign language video captions and glossaries for children who are deaf or hard of hearing.
  • Text to speech, audio narration, keyboard navigation, and braille-ready formats for students with print disabilities.
  • Alternative layouts and texts for children with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

The UnrestrICTed Challenge seeks both technological solutions and contextual experts, including local Disabled Persons Organizations (DPOs), to contribute their expertise to the co-design process to develop concept papers detailing the context-specific approach, pathway to scale, and evaluation requirements.

Apply now! Deadline is July 20, 2020.

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Written by
Wayan Vota co-founded ICTworks. He also co-founded Technology Salon, MERL Tech, ICTforAg, ICT4Djobs, ICT4Drinks, JadedAid, Kurante, OLPC News and a few other things. Opinions expressed here are his own and do not reflect the position of his employer, any of its entities, or any ICTWorks sponsor.
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5 Comments to “Apply Now: $1 Million to Improve Literacy Tech for Children with Disabilities”

  1. Michael Leventhal says:

    While I appreciate all the information that ICTWorks gathers and shares, it would have saved me 20 minutes this morning if the article on Literacy Tech for Children with Disabilities had included the information that only participants working in a very short list (9 or so) countries are eligible. I understand why this is missed … it is mentioned nowhere on grant site … you don’t see this until you start an application. Good feedback to pass to the grantor.

    • Wayan Vota says:

      I think you are referring to this passage on page 15 of the competition document, which I agree isn’t noted clearly elsewhere in the grant application process: “ACR GCD will prioritize EOIs for the following contexts: ​Nepal, Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Pacific Islands, and Rwanda. ​Other eligible contexts include: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, Malawi, and the Philippines.​ Solutions that have already been implemented in these contexts are preferred, but Solvers may also propose solutions that were tested in other similar contexts that can be successfully transitioned to scale.”

  2. The National Institute for the Deaf (NID) is the foremost organisation in South Africa providing all-inclusive, services that are accessible to the Deaf and persons with hearing loss. Services include accredited skills and occupational training, residential care and development of Deaf adults with multiple disabilities and Deaf elderly persons and integrated support services through research, innovation and development. Our vision remains to empower all persons with hearing loss enabling them to reach their full potential. NID’s services is underpinned by values such as Unity, Empowerment, Integrity, Ownership and Diversity. NID is privileged and proud of the fact that this year we can celebrate 139 years of pioneering services to the Deaf and persons with hearing loss in South Africa. We are a registered NPO and PBO.

    I would like to find out if the below funding opportunity is available for South African organisations as well? We have an ongoing project which we can apply for: Digital Educational Book in South African Sign Language

    Your feedback is much appreciated.

    • Wayan Vota says:

      Your organization and effort sound wonderful for communities in South Africa. Unfortunately, as we learned in the comment above, this opportunity is focused on certain countries and regions, and South Africa might not be a location under consideration by the donor.

  3. Michael Leventhal says:

    In the interest of saving others the trouble …
    This question appears in the application form, showing what countries the grant is limited to.
    Which eligible context will your solution be implemented in? *
    Bangladesh
    Indonesia
    Laos
    Malawi
    Nepal
    Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands
    Philippines
    Rwanda
    Multiple Countries