Transforming lives of people with disabilities and special needs
through the use of assistive technology

Special mention and thanks to star supporter William Tilden for another extremely generous donation.

Also huge appreciation to family member and JSF associate Fiona Anderson for calling on the family to make donations which her employer agreed to match!!
Thanks so much to all of you who donated and thank you  The Futures Laboratory 

And a very special thank you to acclaimed, best selling author Fiona Valpy who recently made an incredibly generous donation. 

More good news - we recently received another £500 grant from the Buzzacott Stuart Defries Memorial Fund.

We are really delighted that Buzzcott decided to award us this grant for a third time and, in accordance with their charitable purpose, these funds will be used to support a young person in the London area. 

On the fundraising front, we must again extend enormous gratitude to King's College School - Bourne House and to Surbiton High School - Pankhurst House for their ongoing support through some very creative social distancing fundraising events.

And an exciting piece of news - we recently celebrated our SIXTH anniversary. It has been an amazing 6 years; in that time we have raised £52,879 and awarded FORTY FOUR grants totalling £51,655. 

Thank you to each and every one of you who helped to make this possible!!l

GRANTS AWARDED

  Terry

Terry is a 33 year old with autism and difficulties communicating on all levels: reading, writing and social relationships. He struggles with completing tasks and with all things financial, so requires constant supervision.

Terry had a short trial of the C-Pen (text to speech scanner) and it helped him to read labels on cooking ingredients, enabling him to prepare his meals unsupervised! He also used the pen to read birthday cards from his family and to read the local newspaper. He loves comics and was also able to read these unaided.

Terry's Housing Support worker and his mother could both see that having a C-Pen of his own would provide him with much needed independence and would provide him with confidence in his abilities to do things for himself and to enjoy his hobbies.

Terry was awarded a grant of £240 to fund the C-Pen

Andrew

Andrew is a 36 year old who has severe spinal and brain injury and is now a tetraplegic. He has had a long spell in hospital and is due home soon. He will never fully recover, which means that he will need care staff to help him with his every day needs.

Although Andrew has the use of his hands, he has difficulty with a keyboard. However, he can use a tablet. With a tablet he can control lights, TV, heating etc. making him less dependent on care staff. He can also stay in touch with family and friends.

Andrew wants to be able to work again and give something back to the community. He hopes to start work in graphic design and advertising as soon as possible. He had been using a very basic tablet but it lacked the functionality he needed to be able to install the apps required for work and for increased independence. 


Andrew was awarded a grant of £912 to fund an iPad Pro

Message from Andrew: "I would just like to say a big Thank you to all the people working and supporting your charity. I was very grateful to receive a grant for a grant for an apple 12.9 pro.... I am a complete tetraplegic and wheelchair user and have been for the last ten years. I struggle to use a normal keyboard but the tablet keyboard is really easy to use. There's also a great deal of applications available to do art graphics and writing. This means when I leave hospital I can work from home, stay connected and control my flat all from the tablet...So I am very grateful to the Janki Saye foundation."

 Mia

Mia is a 10 year old with Tuberous Sclerosis and epilepsy and she is non-verbal.

Her family and teachers had been using a basic iPad app to try and communicate with her, but she found it very frustrating as she was not always able to communicate her needs and preferences.

Mia's Speech and Language Therapist had been using a more advance app with her called Snap Core First and she responded very well. She had been set up with some core words and she understood the cause and effect of these words such as Stop and More!

Mia's mother was very keen for her to have access to an iPad with this app at home so that she could further develop her communication skills and enable her to better interact with her family. 

Mia was awarded a grant of £429 to fund the iPad with the Snap Core First app

 Ian

Ian is a 40 year old who has been registered blind since 2013 as a result of a genetic condition called Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy. He also has MS. He is unable to read text at all, even with magnification as his vision is very blurred. His MS impacts his mobility and the combination of both conditions affects his ability to lead an independent life.

When Ian lost his sight he felt that he would never be able to use a computer again as he couldn't see the screen and keyboard. Then, two years ago, he engaged with the services of sight loss charities and he met other visually impaired people who made him aware of technologies that could help him. 

Now he use a smartphone with voice activated services to help him with some tasks, but his goal is to improve his skills and knowledge and complete some online courses which will enable him to start working again. He doesn't know if this is realistic, but his support worker from the Sight Loss Association says that he has been doing some voluntary work and feels that he has a lot to offer.

Ian tried using a laptop with the Narrator software and this made it possible for him to access and read online documents and websites etc. If he had his own laptop with this software, he could work towards his goal and it would also help with online shopping and banking.

Ian was awarded a grant of £630 to fund a laptop and the Narrator software  

 Message from Ian: "I would like to thank you for the grant... I am part of the Sight Loss group and I am taking part in the training so I will be able to assist others and the laptop I received will be put to good use. Again thank you so much".

Stratton Primary School

The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) department at Stratton School identified the need for assistive technology to help support their students with remote learning and in the classroom.

The assistant head teacher for Inclusion and SEND had two children assessed by Tech Ability who provided her with suggestions as to which technologies could help support these children as well as other pupils with similar profiles. 

The school had been fortunate to receive some laptops and Chromebooks from the Government during the periods of remote learning. However, the assistant head felt that they could help their children make significant progress if they has access to more assistive technology to complement these devices. 

The desire was to be able to purchase headsets for individual children with cognition and learning difficulties so that they could dictate their sentences and hear the text read back. Also, it was recommended that they have a range of different keyboard styles for children who find it difficult to locate the keys on a conventional keyboard. And they wished to purchase the Clicker app to help pupils who are unable to record their thoughts without pictorial support. This app has been recommended as a resource that could help these children with their independence and success in writing. 

Stratton Primary School was awarded a grant of £1,360 to fund 30 headsets, 10 special keyboards and a 10 user subscription for the Clicker app.

Message from the assistant head teacher: "We haven't received the headphones yet but they are on their way! Our children are really benefitting from the use of the keyboards and the Clicker program. I am so very grateful to the Janki Saye Foundation to be able to provide this for our pupils" 

Lucy