Sentra Wyata Guna prepares digital services for persons with disabilities
Bandung — Sentra Wyata Guna, under the Ministry of Social Affairs (Kemensos), is preparing digital services to expand access for persons with disabilities to information, employment, and assistive devices.
The Head of Sentra Wyata Guna, Feri Afriyanto, stated that these services are not only intended for those at Wyata Guna but could be developed for national use. “Our hope is that through the trial of this system, we can help open access for persons with disabilities, including audiobooks, job searching, and other essential resources,” Feri said in Bandung on Friday.
He noted that previously, Sentra Wyata Guna provided books to visually impaired individuals via flash drives. However, this method was deemed limited as access to the book collection was not sufficiently widespread.
Feri explained that through the ‘Digitabilitas’ application, text-format books can be converted into audio using a reader, allowing visually impaired individuals to access and listen to books digitally. “Therefore, these books will be accessible to the visually impaired in audio format,” he added.
He mentioned that the centre will collaborate with publishers and authors to provide a variety of book collections. Once obtained, these books will be converted into audio and integrated into the system.
According to him, providing books in audio format serves as a practical alternative, as producing Braille books requires significant costs and larger storage space. “Because the volume is so high and the costs are substantial, we will convert them to audio. This way, people can ‘read’ through sound,” he said.
In addition to book access, the Ministry of Social Affairs is preparing a portal to connect job-seeking persons with disabilities with companies. Through this system, companies can register their manpower needs, while persons with disabilities can list their specific competencies.
“Competencies that can be listed include marketing, information technology, writing, and human resource management. Our goal is to bring these two parties together,” he concluded.