International Program - General Information

Origins of the International Program : In 1985 Overbrook started an International Program that over the next thirteen years would train young blind and low vision students between 16 and 20 years of age from throughout the world. This special program provided students with a one-year intensive study program and an opportunity to live with and learn about the cultures of other countries. The program provided intensive training in the areas of access technology, written and spoken English, orientation and mobility and leadership development.

Between 1985 and 1999, 281 students and 38 teachers of the blind representing 43 countries from all regions of the world completed the program.

This first phase of the Overbrook International Program created a network of individuals who returned home with a real appreciation of how new developments in information technologies for the blind could have a positive impact on their lives and the lives of other blind persons in their country. Gradually, these individuals shared their knowledge with others and by the early 1990's Overbrook was receiving more and more requests from governments around the world to help them to use these new technologies to expand education and employment opportunities for all blind persons. These numerous requests led to a second phase of the International Program in the mid- 90's.

An International Outreach Program : Recognizing that a US-based program could only reach a handful of individuals each year Overbrook began to explore with organizations of and for the blind how our program might respond to the growing requests for assistance. As this dialog proceeded it became clear that a more regionally based program would allow us to reach significantly larger numbers of blind and low vision persons and, most importantly, to strengthen the capacity of local organizations to more effectively use new technologies within their education, rehabilitation and job training programs.

In 1996 the first of these regional initiatives, The Eastern European Network on Access Technology (EENAT) was established by Overbrook in collaboration with the Open Society Institute. Shortly thereafter in mid-1998 The Overbrook-Nippon Network on Educational Technology (ON-NET) was created in collaboration with The Nippon Foundation to serve eight countries in Southeast Asia. The most recent international outreach program, the Overbrook China Initiative was started in 2003 and works with eleven partner schools and universities in China.

In addition to these current international outreach programs, Overbrook is very actively involved with the:

- International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment www.icevi.org and

-Deafblind International www.deafblindinternational.org

and each year provides referral and resource information to hundreds of individuals and organizations in the US and throughout the world.