MEDIA | NEWS ARTICLES
Over the last 5 years the Awards programme has generated
considerable media attention. By profiling the Awards programme,
and the individual winning projects, Childnet hopes to
encourage "best practice" and draw attention
to the individual winning projects.
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 BBC News, 24 January 2000
NET TRIUMPH FOR DYSLEXIC BOY
By Sanjeev Srivastava
in Bombay
A 16-year-old dyslexic boy in Bombay has won an international
award for seting up his own website to help others who
suffer with the condition.
The award - from the UK-based charity Childnet International
- commends Jason Fernandes for single-handedly producing
an internet site "to reach out to other Indian children
who have learning difficulties and provide resources to
help them."
Jason - a secondary-school student who was found to have
dyslexia just over a year ago - has had his life revolutionised
by the internet.
After designing a site for disabled kids, Jason is now
a celebrity and a role model for other children suffering
from dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia and other learning
disorders.
He is due to travel to Barbados in April to collect his
award and now features regularly in Indian newspapers and
features on television chat shows.
Jason gets mail from around the world seeking help, counsel
and guidance - and not just from kids suffering from learning
disorders and their parents.
Even doctors and nurses treating dyslexic children communicate
with Jason trying to learn something from Jason's
experience.
Ridiculed
But life was not so good to Jason until about a year ago.
A target of ridicule in his school and thought of as stupid
by his teachers and parents, Jason was often punished for
being lazy and careless.
It was only after he was diagnosed as a dyslexic that
his parents realised that there was nothing wrong with
him - except for the fact that he couldn¿t read
written text.
He was then shifted to a school which provides facilities
for children like him and given a dictaphone and a laptop.
Computer knack
Since the age of twelve, Jason had displayed a knack for
handling computers - he would completely take apart his
brothers computer and then reassemble it in a matter of
hours .
"Dyslexics are not disabled. Often, they are more
able than a normal child," Jason tells a group of
parents who have come with their dyslexic children to the
Fernandes home on a Sunday afternoon to seek help and inspiration.
He then talks about how the right brain is more dominant
in a dyslexic than the left brain, and how it would help
dyslexics to think not in terms of text and words, but
in images and visuals.
He now also works with the software team of India's leading
computer magzine - Chip - and helps solve PC problems for
computer users who write into the magzine.
He has also designed entertainment software and after
finishing school he wishes to enroll in college in the
US.
1999 |
2000 | 2001
| 2002 | 2003
| 2004 | 2005 |