Description
What is the issue that we are helping to solve?
Though vast in number, the blind and visually impaired are a forgotten group in Africa. Educational opportunities for them are scarce and significantly behind technologically. Further hindering their role in the workforce is widespread bias and a lack of understanding of their capabilities. Combined, they result in a marginalized, dependent condition, either hidden from the rest of society or seen resorting to begging and prostitution for survival. The majority lack self-esteem and self-worth.
How will this project solve this problem?
Our computer labs for the blind & visually impaired are a channel for specialized, locally relevant training focused on:
- building self-reliance and independence
- building social connections
- teaching information-gathering and academic advancement
- training in skills employers seek most
We enable our students to compete with their sighted peers, and to ultimately enter a job marketplace that had previously dismissed them, leaving their intellectual and technical capacity unused.
Potential Long Term Impact
The far-reaching impacts of this project include
- greatly increased feelings of self-worth and self esteem
- developed self-reliance and independence
- ability to seek gainful employment
- a shift in family dynamics where a person previously seen as a burden is recognized as an equal contributor due in part to newly acquired job skills
- transformation of social attitudes where blind and visually impaired persons are recognized as productive contributors to society
Project Message
The computer program has restored back our sight. If I can now read newspapers, send emails, and do research for my project, it's a whole new world, its amazing!
- 6th Grade Student, Thika School for the Blind
