Learning Includes

An aggregated life-long learning content platform accessible and operated by students with all forms of disabilities to learn remotely safely

In collaboration with education and other lifelong learning content local and foreign partners, we have developed an aggregating online and mobile learning platform that is access friendly by students stricken with all forms of disabilities and medical conditions to study remotely with mobile devices within their comfort levels in meeting the UN SDG Goal No 4 of bringing quality education for all in Malaysia. Often left behind in their education due to access issues either in mobility or learning resources that are friendly for all the disabled students, this problem has always been a bane to elevate these targeted disabled students out of poverty when they reach adulthood. Our aggregating virtual and mobile platform also engages trained visually and physically impaired Adult and Youths to be these students tutors, mentors, and coaches. Our online platform allows this often marginalised disabled community to not only learn but also to earn safely and remotely. In working with our education and learning partners from our nation and abroad that uses Augmented Reality, we have further enhanced these existing learning models to be access friendly to these disabled students. Currently, our aggregating learning platform is about 70% access-friendly by the visually impaired, about 50% accessible by the hearing impaired, and 100% accessible for both the physically and mentally impaired (autistic and down syndrome students) with guided supervision and zero supervision for the other impaired students. Our aggregating learning platform can be accessed with minimal internet connectivity as it can also be accessed with mobile.

There is an estimated 65000 students stricken with all forms of disabilities studying in special and mix public schools in Malaysia as of 2018. Out of which 60% of these students are mentally impaired and the remaining a mix of visually, physically and hearing-impaired students. There is a lack of specialised schools teaching these targeted students, not to mention the lack of specially trained teachers for these students. For example, there is only 1 dedicated secondary or junior high school teaching visually impaired students and this school can only accommodate 200 students out of an estimated 3000+ visually impaired students. Another problem for these visually impaired students is in their learning resources. They have to depend on Braille books and equipment to study which is not portable and expensive to produce, costing our Government millions to print annually and whenever a subject's syllabus is changed, these visually impaired students have to wait for another 1-1.5 years for their braille books to be updated. As for the physically impaired, almost all of the public schools are not wheelchair access friendly and there is an apparent lack of sign language interpreters/teachers and specialised teachers to train both the autistic and downs syndrome students. Special private education and learning centers are often too pricey for most of these students families to attend. During the Covid-19 lockdown which has forced all schools to be closed for the past year, these targeted disabled students are the ones most left behind in their already neglected education.

We serve the students stricken with all forms of disabilities and medical conditions in our nation, Malaysia. We work with most of the Disabled NGOs, Parents care groups and our local Special Education department within the Ministry of Education to engage these students and their caretakers or parents.  We reach out to Corporate, Foundations and the public locally to sponsor these special students learning, coaching and tuition fees in addition to their devices and connectivity needs to access our aggregating virtual and mobile platform.

Our aggregating lifelong learning platform is aligned to the challenge of providing quality equitable, accessible education to all people, especially in high or low connectivity areas. Our platform can also be accessed through various mobile networks. Besides being able to serve all the students coming from needy families , indigenous students and even refugees, our platform is designed to mainly serve the targeted students stricken with all forms of disabilities and medical conditions, who are often neglected and left behind in accessing quality education that has the potential to change and transform their lives. Additionally our platform equips, enables and employs the visually and physically impaired youths and adults to be these targeted tutors, coaches and mentors, thus empowering them to earn an income that will elevate them out of poverty with dignity

Led by Stevens Chan, a former entrepreneur who lost his eyesight to glaucoma at 45 

We innovate by collaborating with existing established education and learning content providers and developers working within the curriculums of our nation's education system by renovating their existing platforms be accessible friendly for all students stricken with all forms of disabilities and medical conditions to navigate and operate for their learning remotely safely within their comfort zones thus ensuring that the education needs are not neglected even during Pandemic times. In addition, our aggregating lifelong learning platform equips, enables and empowers the visually and physically Youths and Adults to be these targeted impaired student tutors, coaches and mentors. Our platform allows the PWDs communities an opportunity to be educated, learn, and be empowered with the relevant skills to gain a quality education and learning opportunity in addition to being able to earn virtually safely at their comfort levels that will elevate them from trapped poverty with dignity.

In 2017, we collaborated with our nation's public listed and largest education content publisher and developer to our nation Ministry of Education and with the support from the various sponsors and donors provided the this education access to an average of 150 impaired students studying in both mix and special public national schools nationwide in Malaysia. In 2018, we collaborated with another local lifelong learning skills content developer and provider to help the impaired youths gain additional learning skills to improve their capacity for work or micro-enterprise skills. In 2020, we collaborated with our content partner from Pakistan for a pilot programme to include autistic and down syndrome students. To date, we have about 20 autistic students on this programme. Since 2017, our programme has gained support from 3 private foundations and 5 public agencies grant support to make a difference to these often left behind impaired students in Malaysia.

All of our partners uses Cloud applications, Microsoft, Apache, MySQL, PHP and augmented reality applications for their learning platforms. Our access tech partner enables all of this platforms be accessible friendly in accordance to the WCAG2.0 version

PROBLEM 

Inequalities in access to quality Education and Economic Self sustaining opportunities for the often left behind Children and Youths stricken with all forms of disabilities and medical conditions.

ACTIVITIES 
a. Computer and smart devices skills training and orientation
b. Access to existing online learning platform that is accessible even for blind students to learn
c. Jobs and Micro Business training and internship
d. Collaborate with various social, private, Public and Education Partners to make their existing digital and non digital platforms be accessible to this PWD trainees and students
e. Coach and Monitor graduated trainees who has secured a Job and started a Micro Business

OUTCOMES (SHORT-MED) 
a. Better access to online learning platforms that has been renovated to be inclusive & accessible for PWD students
b. Increase no. of digital & non digital enterprise platforms that has been renovated in collaboration with partners to be inclusive & accessible enough for the PWD to operate and navigate for jobs and micro business enabling and empowerment to be financial independence.
c. Increase in no. of students and trainees
d. Increase in partners from the Social, Private, Public and Education sectors

OUTCOMES (LONG) 
a. Targeted additional 1000 educated children & youths stricken with all forms of disabilities and medical conditions over 3 years
b. Targeted additional 100 economically enabled youths and adults stricken with all forms of disabilities and medical conditions with jobs and micro businesses over 3 years.
c. Targeted additional 15 new collaborations with various partners from the social, private, public and education sectors in making their digital and non digital platforms be inclusive and accessible enough for the PWDs to navigate and operate for their learning and earning over 3 years.

IMPACT 
Educated and Economically Empowered Children, Youths and Adults stricken with all forms of disabilities and medical conditions that will move this often left behind marginalised communities out of poverty.

We measure our impact by number of impaired students adopted for the programme, number of mix and special schools onboard the programme, number of special education teachers using the platform to teach the impaired students, frequency of use by both students and teachers, progress of impaired students education, number of impaired tutors, coaches and mentors employed for the programme and nos of sponsors and type of sponsorships for the students intake annually. We produce an annual Social Return on Investment report for our learning project annually to our sponsors and stakeholders.

Over the course of next 5 years, we have the following goals:
a. Increase number of impaired students adoption annually by a 30% ratio cumulatively from our current 150 to reach 2000 impaired students by the 5th year
b. Increase number of special education teachers from current 4 to 30 teachers by the 5th year
c. Increase number of impaired tutor coaches and mentors from our current 3 to 40 impaired tutors in 5 years

Activities : Work with all the relevant disabled NGOs and parent groups to recruit targeted students and tutors in addition to working with mix and special schools nationwide with the support from the Special Education Department in our nation.

We aim to achieve the above impact goals by:
a. Increase  amount of corporates, public agencies and foundations sponsorships as a part of their CSR/ESG program from USD20000 this year to USD100000 in 5 years   
b. Promoting this learning programme to the public to adopt the impaired students education thru donation or purchase of learning programme annual subscription package for their own children tuition from the initial USD2000 to reach USD25000 in 5 years 
c. Pitch for impact investments of USD200000 to grow our social enterprise by end 2022

Outputs  :  Increase the number of project and business development executives to reach the targeted impact goals. Ultimately our mission is to yield more educated impaired students that has at least achieved a minimum O-level education in addition to yielding more financial independent impaired youths earning minimum USD 600 monthly as this students tutors.

We face barriers in attracting and hiring human talent in business development. Coaching and training and project managers for coordinating all activities relating to field activities, logistics, relations, and technical development as we are unable to match the market remuneration for hiring these talents. Other barriers includes technology as we need to engage AVR developers to help enhance the learning activities, especially for hearing impaired students. The way forward for us to overcome these barriers is another barrier itself i.e funding. We are now actively pursuing impact investment pitching opportunities, in addition to applying to the various philanthropic foundations within our nation and Singapore to enhance our chances of attracting more support and funding. As an accredited social enterprise with tax exempt status that adds credibility to our organisation we are tapping onto this accreditation and recognition to gain traction among corporates, foundations and public agencies to adopt our initiative for the impaired community as a part of their CSR and ESG programs.

Stevens Chan, our founder climbed back out of his darkness after almost a year since losing his eyesight to Glaucoma in 2007 at 45. With the support from his wife, he began his new calling as a community worker when he started the Malaysia Glaucoma Society in 2009. In 2011, Stevens became a Social Activist advocating for the equality rights of the Blind and other disabled community in our nation by starting a movement to advocate for the rights of the blind to use Guide Dogs in our nation. Stevens in 2012 partnered with the renown Dialogue SE from Germany started the Dialogue in the Dark  experience centre to conduct empathy experience learning tours and workshops to the public,to earn more revenues to sustain his social works .
There are many glaucoma children, teenagers and their families under Stevens and his wife care. Stevens was burdened for the future of these visually impaired childrens' future when they grow up if the current climate of inequalities for the disabled community is not transformed. And he believes the way towards initialising change is through education. In 2017, he started the learning includes project. Soon, Stevens partnered with a few more local and foreign education and learning partners to develop Learning Includes a aggregate accessible virtual learning platform for all types of impaired students and youths to learn and earn remotely. Our mission is to yield more educated and financially independent disabled people that can elevate them out of poverty with dignity.

Asides from the founder there are:  1 abled full time Project Manager and 3 visually impaired tutors and coaches working on the solution.

The main core value of our team collectively is in empathy. We understand the needs and challenges of the community we serve, having been working with and for them since 2014. All of our impaired tutor and coaches are either former professionals who have lost their ability due to illness and accidents including a team member who was blind from birth yet he managed to study until University level to  graduate with a degree in social science. Due to this core value time and again we have managed to convince many public school teachers and parents to embark on this new learning approach to help improve the students education. Besides motivating the targeted students to perform better than their tutors, our tutors and coaches have on many occasions been able to gain the trust of the impaired students as they began to work closely together as a team.  

Stevens saw the need to include learnings for not only all the differently impaired but also to design new approaches to train and recruit former professionals who became disabled and impaired graduates to be this students tutors, mentors  and coaches with an aim to motivate and encourage the targeted students will to gain quality education that can and will change their lives. This approach also enables and empowers this youths and adults to earn a decent income with dignity and an opportunity to impact the younger impaired community.

We are now partnering with 6 local and foreign education, learning and access content provider to offer their programs to this targeted group of students. As all except for 3 of our foreign partners offer their learning programs on an annual subscription we act as their affiliate partner for the programme enabling us to earn a commission out of every subscription. As for the other partners programs we also earn a commission out of every learning program sold. The main difference between this partners program is that one is used directly  by the beneficiaries whereas the other services which is to enhance the learning resources and access is promoted to both special and mix schools to use and adapt for their learning and teaching approach as well as to corporates, foundations and public agencies to sponsor and support these students education     

To gain more awareness to secure more partnership support that can not only help us to learn from more experts but also to  scale and grow our aggregating learning platform internationally. Partnering with Octava and MIT Solve will certainly help to gain more credibility, visibility and awareness for our learning platform for the disabled people. In terms of our barriers in human talent we can seek more professional and expert advise to find more methods to attract and recruit not only talents but also interns and volunteers. From MIT we hope to be able to tap onto not only their technology expertise but also their network of technology partners and the  SOLVE community of past winners and applicants for possible collaborations to improve and expand our learning platform. We also hope to gain more fund raising opportunities to pitch our solutions to their network of impact investors and philanthropists from this partnership that will help us scale and grow our platform not only in Malaysia but also in ASEAN.  

We seek to gain expert advice, coaching and mentoring support  to help us in attracting and maintaining talents, networking and pitching opportunities to impact investors and philanthropist, accessible technology development and research, improve ways to measuring impact frequently and be more current, collaborations with more learning content and development partners, improve our story telling to gain more publicity and finally to advise us on regional expansion to impact more disabled people.