Photos: Old PCs help Africa's blind

The KUB is working alongside existing partner Sightsavers and Computer Aid to improve the education and rehabilitation of blind Kenyans. KUB has about 70 percent coverage of the country so far, in around 45 branches.

In the past, most of the access to information has been through Braille books and paper, according to Martin Kieti. "This is quite cumbersome, expensive and time-consuming," he said. "Bringing Braille into the hands of someone in the village has been a challenge. One ream of paper costs about $100 and one Braille machine costs about $5,000." The process of putting a book into Braille is also challenging — it can take up to two or three months to convert a textbook, for example.

But with the rise of ICT, the charity has increasingly been looking at alternative formats that make use of technology. Audio tape was used for a while but the format is starting to disappear, even in Africa. Now CDs and DVDs are increasingly being used as an alternative to Braille. The charity is now in discussion with publishers about getting access to raw texts of books, including government textbooks, for conversion into digital formats.