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e-Sense – the Software for the Education of Children with Deafblindness

PRESS RELEASE

Bucharest. November 24th. The Foundation Sense International Romania, Code for Romania and Orange Foundation are launching the platform www.esense.ro during the International Conference “Deafblindness during the Pandemic”, organised online.

The platform is founded on the professional expertise of the specialists in the field of deafblindness from the Sense International Romania and partner schools: School Centre for Inclusive Education Cristal Oradea, School Centre for Inclusive Education Constantin Pufan Timisoara and Special Technological Highschool Vasile Pavelcu Iași, combined with the expertise of professional and enthusiastic community of young people from Code for Romania, who develop IT solutions to respond to various issues related to people and society.

The project e-Sense is funded by Orange Foundation with the amount of 414 804 lei, through the programme “The World through Colour and Sound”, the largest fund dedicated to people with hearing / visual impairments in Romania.

This project appeared as a response to the concrete needs of children with deafblindness. The work with the child in this context, the games created through these digital instruments, are benefit when educating special children, ensuring a high level of communication, socialisation, cognitive and psychological development, a support for the parents and/or the teacher”. Loredana Prisecaru, Special Technological Highschool Vasile Pavelcu Iași

“We are a handful of people trying to do all that we can to change the life of others for the better. At the same time, the feeling of being a part of this change, transforms us too into better people.” Eva Oprea, School Centre for Inclusive Education Cristal Oradea

Digital technology is increasingly prevalent in the education system and everyday life, but not for children with deafblindness. In order for them to have access to quality education and not to "fall behind", software is needed to adapt to their specific needs given by the combination of visual and hearing impairments.

In the absence of vision and/or hearing, access to knowledge is more limited, which is why specific sensory stimulation activities are necessary, supporting the child to be in contact with the world. The main aim of e-Sense is to transpose into the digital technology realm exercises that lead to the development of perceptive skills to detects sensory stimuli and to become aware of their presence, the development of attention to sensory stimuli, to localise them. Explore and manipulate, recognise and discriminate.

“e-Sense is the solution that schools had needed for a very long time. A customisable solution that allows teachers to utilise, in an adapted manner, the specific situation of each child, because each child has very specific requirements.  We succeeded to build a system that will support teachers in early intervention and not only, with flexible exercises and games that follow the curriculum in force and that is open to everyone, it is open-source, replicable and reusable all around the world.” Olivia Vereha, Chief Operations Officer and co-founder Code for Romania

After registering an account on the platform www.esense.ro, the specialist will have access to a series of exercises that can be made together with the child. The specialist will have an increased level of control upon the exercises features such as shapes, colours, contrast, size, objects direction of movement – all in order to personalise the exercises depending on the child’s development level. The specialist will be able to record, monitor and assess the child’s progress, and therefore having a better initial and on-going assessment process.

The exercises are created in accordance with the National Curriculum for the Education of Children with Deafblindness/Multisensory Impairments (Ministry of Education, Research and Innovation Order no. 5243/01.09.2008) and the Educational Content for Ante-pre-school Early Intervention for with Deafblindness/Multisensory Impairments (Ministry of Education Order no. 3071/18.01.2013).

 

About Sense International Romania

Sense International Romania is a Romanian organisation established in 2001 with the aim to improve the life of people with deafblindness and multisensory impairments in our country. SIR is the only organisation in Romania actively fighting for the rights of people with deafblindness. Through national level programmes that promote the early intervention foe babies born with sensory impairments, the education of children with deafblindness/MSI and the provision of vocational services, SIR manages to brig a change for the better in the life of hundreds of people with this type of disability. Our field of interest is represented  by 4 major strategic directions: promoting the rights of people with deafblindness, health, education and social inclusion.

www.surdocecitate.ro/en/

About Code for Romania

Code for Romania is the second largest organisation in the field of civic technology in the world. The association develops pro-bono software solution, in open-source system, to solve social issues, with the support of more than 1800 volunteers from Romania and Abroad. In 2020 alone, the solutions in the Covid-19 ecosystem (stirioficiale.ro, rohelp.ro, datelazi.ro etc) and the voting ecosystem (Vot Diaspora, Rezultate Vot etc.) have been used by over 8 million Romanians.

www.code4.ro/en/

About Orange Foundation

Orange Foundation is a non-for-profit organisation involved in the life of the community, through the implementation of philanthropic projects meant to bring positive changes in the life of disadvantaged people. In more than 8 years of activity, Orange Foundation invested over 6.5 million Euro in digital education projects for disadvantaged people and in health, education and cultural projects for the benefit of people with visual or hearing impairments, aiming at their social integration. For more details, visit www.fundatiaorange.ro.