Computer Labs for the Blind and Visually Impaired

On Nov 10th inABLE sponsored a historical farewell party for the 2011 Thika Primary School for the Blind graduation candidates. The celebration was kicked off with a video conference in the main computer lab with inABLE Founder and Executive Director Irene Mbari-Kirika. All the candidates had a chance to say something about the computer program, the knowledge they acquired, and how it will help them in the future. Irene gave a motivational speech encouraging the students to embrace technology whenever they get an opportunity.

Teacher Mr. Ezekiel Musau traced the roots of the inABLE computer program for those who did not know how it came about. He explained how he and students met Irene at a nearby library and out of that chance meeting the idea of a computer lab for the blind sparked Irene’s imagination and fueled a new passion that became a reality the summer of 2009. Musau went on to say that this candidates’ farewell celebration would have been more special if Irene was able to be here in person to congratulate each departing student. In closing, he encouraged the students to say in touch using their email addresses.

The Thika Primary School for the Blind Principal Mr. Jotham Makokha described this occasion as very unique and historic. Typically, once a student has completed KCPE they leave the school without any gathering. He expressed appreciation to the inABLE team for their kind gesture and noted that this is the very first farewell party for the candidates and he hopes that it becomes a new tradition. 

In his closing remarks, the Principal Makokha called to mind parallels with Martin Luther King’s vision,“ “Martin Luther King had a dream for America and the dream was that one day America would be led by a black man, and people laughed. They said it would never happen in America. But the dream came true when Barack Obama became the President. Irene also had a dream and the dream was that one day blind people will have access to computer technology and that dream too became a reality when the inABLE computer lab for the blind was opened at the Thika Primary School for the Blind and now her inspiration is spreading to blind schools all around Kenya and in other parts of Africa”.

Links:

• inABLE

With a plane ticket sponsored by our partner KLM, inABLE was able to send our Executive Director Irene Mbari-Kirika to attend two key events below which were held in Accra, Ghana and Nairobi, Kenya.

5^th Africa Forum Blindness Conference – July 2011

inABLE was invited as a presenter at this conference (see conference details here), which was the largest-ever gathering in the blindness field. The Forum attracted almost 400 delegates from 43 countries from Africa and various parts of the world. A number of significant milestones for African people who are visually impaired were announced or launched at this, the only international conference on blindness in Africa.

During the event, inABLE and Georgia Tech co-presented a paper on the Mwangaza Project, which is our collaborative research project identifying ways to use technology to teach math and science to blind students. The presentation was very well received and generated animated discussion about obstacles in this area and options for overcoming them. As one attendee said, “This is a real issue for students across Africa, and this program needs to be expanded to reach more of them.”

inABLE Stakeholder Meeting in Thika, Kenya – 22^nd of June

This meeting was held at the Thika Primary School for the Blind, where inABLE’s inaugural computer lab is located. The purpose of the event was to engage policy makers in the educational sector to seek ways to expand our model for computer education for the blind. Among the attending organizations were the Teachers Service Commission (which trains, deploys and pays teachers), the Ministry of Education, the Kenya Institute of Special Education (which trains all special needs instructors), the Kenya Society for the Blind, the African Braille Center and the International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment. Also attending were representatives from four schools for the blind (St Lucy’s Primary, St Lucy’s Secondary, Thika Primary and Thika Secondary) and the Salvation Army which is their founding body.

Some of the accomplishments of this event were:

• Recognition of our model by the attending stakeholder institutions as a proven and viable strategy that can be applied to other schools.
• Commitment to participation in making the program a success. For example, the Teachers Service Commission agreed to assign a full time instructor to our computer program at Thika Primary.
• Discussions with the Kenya Institute of Special Education about adopting our instructor training program into their trainer curriculum. KISE has identified an initial group that they want to be the first KISE-trained computer instructors for the blind.

We will continue to keep you abreast of our activities and efforts. Thank you for your continued support for inABLE and our beneficiaries!