Lasanga Ratnayake

Lasanga received an iPhone in July 2018. We followed up with him to learn how our donation has affected his quality of life.

Hello, I’m Lasanga Sandaruwan Ratnayake. I’m from Rajagiriya. I am a person with low vision.

In 2018, ten vision impaired persons received IPhone 6s. I was privileged to be one of them. We all hail from low income families and buying an IPhone was merely a dream for us as they are extremely expensive.

I was elated when I got my IPhone. At that time, I didn’t know how powerful the IPhone’s accessibility features were. The first two apps I used are Be My Eyes and Seeing AI. I am able to be more independent with the help of these apps.

As I am low vision, the most useful app for me is the built in video magnifier. Stand-alone video magnifiers are quite expensive. Its quality is so good that I can read bus numbers, sign boards, price tags, and more with ease. I also use extra large fonts.

Another feature I often use is handwriting. It is much easier than searching for letters on a keyboard.

I have had hands-on screen readers on other brands of phones but VoiceOver is more user-friendly. I don’t know what I’d do without Siri. It helps me get things done fast.

The display brightness can be customized and I can even invert colors. This is extremely useful for me.

I thank you all profoundly for making this donation and helping us become more independent.

This message has been translated from Sinhala to English.