Entrance : The Light on Design Project

The Light on Design Project

The Light on Design Project was launched in 2002 by a group composed of professors and students in Osaka Kyoiku University who were interested in the education of children with visual impairments, along with people from Osaka City University and Baika Junior College who are interested in interior design.
Involved in this project are people devoted to special education and art education, and professionals who are directly educating and training children with disabilities in the community. By joining together to create an event, these people working in different fields respect each other, and share their knowledge to fulfil our achievements.

Three Goals

　The first goal of the Project is to plan events mainly based on "creative activities" for children to enjoy, and then to observe them having fun. This is a simple goal, but their smile is a driving force of this project. We love to hear them say, "It was fun!" or "It was cool!"
Creating activities has the power to encourage the "feeling of joy" from children when they are making things or playing music. In our project, we try to use the power of art and music to bring joy to them.

The second goal is "The Challenge."
There are different kinds of barriers for children who can't see or can't see very well. We can eliminate some of these barriers by giving them some help.
Adults make assumption that blind children can't do certain things, which they are able to do when given the proper surroundings.
If the barriers are not taken care of and children are neglected, they will not get enough necessary experiences and it is more than likely that their abilities will end up not blooming. If we can put our ideas together to help them overcome the barriers and provide them with new experiences, this attempt will change their life dramatically. And for us, developing these idea is a fun challenge. Working with blind children makes us reconsider the things we normally ignore in our daily lives, and both the children and we will change by creating the art together. As a consequence, unique art and music will be created, and that will bring us great joy.
This challenge is all about bringing "joy" to us and them. Having
children discover "fun" will be the "joy" for us.

The third goal is to provide support for families of blind children.
Parents of disabled children have a strong will that they want to raise their children well. However, they don't have sufficient information to accomplish their will. This is a serious issue especially regarding blind children. We often hear concerns such as, "Where should we go to consult with the appropriate people?" or, "I'm worried because nobody can tell what the future will bring my child."
These concerns are caused by a lack of information. In our project, we want to make opportunities for these parents to meet each other. While the children are participating in their events, we hope to provide places for their parents to talk and share their thoughts and feelings.
Moreover, we invite other blind adults who have the same vision-related issues as their children and teachers and professionals who serve blind people, to talk to the parents because we want to offer the family as much information as possible about raising blind children. Parents raise the children, and they are responsible for them. Therefore, we want to offer as much information as we can offer. So, we will provide the space for the parents to mingle while their children are having fun. Such honest discussion should be helpful to enhance the parent's knowledge, to build a network among them, and develop their abilities to make good dudgements. Parents' abilities to take responsibility for raising children comes from obtaining appropriate information. Therefore, we consider this project as a universal meeting space for the future.

Members

Toshikazu Yamamoto (Project Director)　　Satoshi Todo (Vice Director)

Amane Okada, Kanae Kato, Kensuke Kanai, Ikuko Kamiya, Yoshihiro Kimura, Emiko Tatsumi, Shigeru Hayashida, Yoshiharu Horikoshi, Mayumi Wada