inABLE, in partnership with Benetech and the Daisy Consortium, invited Kenyan publishers to attend a Publishers’ Induction on Accessibility for People with Print Disabilities workshop on Friday, February 26th, at the Lenana Swiss Mount Hotel in Nairobi, Kenya. The event was aimed at raising awareness about the global campaign to end the book famine and the role of publishers in promoting access to published works for Kenyans with print disabilities.

The induction was led by Martin Kieti, Head of Benetech and Daisy Consortium in Kenya. He described the book famine as the global scarcity of books in formats that are accessible to people with print disabilities.

“Some of the major reasons for book famine are national copyright laws that prohibit the reproduction, distribution and sharing of protected works without permission from authors and the territorial nature of copyright laws which restrict the cross-border exchange of protected works,” he explained.

The World Health Organization estimates that 285 million people of all ages are visually impaired worldwide, with 39 million of them blind. The World Blind Union, on the other hand, estimates that less than 10% of all published works are accessible to people with print disabilities worldwide, and less than 1% in developing countries.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) administered the Marakesh Treaty in 2013, and it went into effect on September 30, 2016, to facilitate access to published works for people who are blind, visually impaired, or otherwise print disabled. There are currently 193 member-states worldwide, with Kenya becoming the first African country to do so in October 2019.

It was stated that the Kenya Institute for the Blind (KIB) is the authorized entity in Kenya with the authority to chop, scan, and convert hard copies of published works into accessible format copies. This is because of the lack of accessible formats from the Kenyan publishers, which leaves out people with print disabilities in Kenya.

Kieti added, “The main types of accessible formats for people with print disabilities, include Braille, large-print, talking book or audio book, E-book or digital text, and tactile graphics. All these formats must include navigability, synchronized perception channels, and machine-readability features.” 

At the end of the induction, Kieti recommended the following steps towards reducing the book famine in Kenya and the World:

• Capacity development for accessible publishing by taking Accessible Books Consortium (ABC), DAISY or WBU courses on accessible publishing and on the Marrakesh Treaty. 
• Collaboration with local agencies on the Kenya Visionary Learning Initiative to promote the right to read for people with visual impairment. 
• Commitment to help end the book famine by signing the ABC’s Charter for Accessible Publishing
• Compliance with international accessibility standards like EPUB3, DAISY and WCAG.
• Contribution of titles to accessible content repositories like the Global Book Service and Bookshare.

The inABLE team completed book digitization training and the creation of accessible books (contents) in 2020, thanks to the Daisy Consortium, by producing accessible word, PDF, and EPUB (eBooks). In collaboration with the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), inABLE is currently working to digitize 10,000 pages of accessible formats for distribution to over 1,000 students in the Computer-Lab-for-the-Blind program.

FCDO’s assistance in making the induction workshop a success is greatly appreciated by inABLE. We’d also like to thank the following publishers for taking the time to attend: 

• Kenya Institute for the Blind (KIB)
• Catholic University of Eastern Africa Press
• Queenex Publishers Limited 
• Moran Publishers  
• eKitabu
• Oxford University Press East Africa  
• Parents Magazine Africa
• Big Books Ltd
• ARBA Publications  
• Tusome Publishers  
• Redemptor’s Touch
• Daystar University Research and Publishing Centre 
• World Reader
• Jomo Kenyatta Foundation (JKF)
• Longhorn Publishers 
• Kenya Literature Bureau
• Atfaal Publishers

Written by: Esther Njeri Mwangi, Public Relations Officer, inABLE