Great work Johnson and Lawrence,
So many V.I look up to you out here and need what you are offering.
Keep the fire burning....
Subject: The future looks bright for visually impaired students -
http://www.standardmedia.co.ke/mobile/article/2000202196/the-future-looks-bright-for-visually-impaired-students
The future looks bright for visually impaired students
Lawrence Momanyi (left) and Johnson Riungu show some of the blind
learning gadgets during the unveiling of the UAP Old Mutual Foundation
& Kenya Society for the Blind corporate support at the KSB
headquarters in Nairobi. KSB supports approximately 30,000 pupils with
visual impairment and is the central support in the East Africa. April
22nd,2016. Photo/Elvis Ogina (Nairobi)
Every Kenyan has a right to education, a right that is enshrined in
our constitution.
It is with this in mind that, in 2010, the Government committed to
providing free primary education, as well as including persons with
any sort of disability in education and training. Indeed, inclusive
education could not be more important given that there are more than
1.3 million people in Kenya living with a disability.
According to a 2012 Draft Education policy, the enrollment of learners
in special institutions represented about one-third of the expected
number of learners with special needs. It is such exclusion from
education that perpetuates the cycle of disability and poverty.
Yet given a chance, persons with disabilities are just as capable as
the next person – disability is not inability.
This is made crystal clear by Lawrence Momanyi and Johnson Riungu,
both teachers at the Kenya Society for the Blind (KSB) in Nairobi. I
meet this duo during a recent visit to the KSB headquarters where I
found Momanyi consulting with one of his students in the Adaptive
Technologies Centre.
Informed of my presence, he walks up to me and after a greeting leads
the way to his computer at the corner of the room. Although Momanyi is
visually impaired, he sure knows his way around a computer and after
switching on the machine, he calmly explains how he is able to operate
it.
"Whatever I do on the computer is spoken back to me by accessibility
software. Most computers and smart phones have them,” he says pointing
at a pair of speakers on the desk.
Before long, he has opened a Word document and is typing faster than
average. A skill he says he learned using a typewriter.
In 2013, Momanyi surprised the nation after he emerged the best
visually impaired student in KCSE that year. The Nakuru Boys High
School graduate scored a mean grade of A minus and is now a second
year student at The University of Nairobi, pursuing a bachelor’s
degree in Economics.
"As you can imagine, my peers at the university were shocked to see a
visually impaired student on campus. Although there are daily
challenges, I am coping well," he says.
When he is not in class, Momanyi works as an Assistive Technologies
trainer at KSB teaching other visually impaired youth basic computer
skills, using assistive voice technology.
Momanyi tells me he lost his sight as a toddler due to retinal detachment.
"When I lost my sight, I was taken to Kilimani Primary school where I
had to learn how to become independent. That is where I learned
Braille," he says.
From there Momanyi joined a mainstream class at the school and often,
he was the only student in class.
"My parents were very supportive and luckily my dad is a mathematician
and he inspired me to be curious and learn. I probably have some math
genes,” he jokes.
Out of his experience as a visually impaired student and now as a
trainer, Momanyi says the key to teaching others like himself is to
have patience. He says this is the only way to create understanding
and transfer knowledge in spite of all the challenges.
"In this part of the world, visually impaired learners still have to
contend with issues such as lack of Braille books or other assertive
learning equipment. We still do not have access to the kind of
equipment our peers in the developed world have," he said.
On his part, Riungu, the go-to man for Adaptive Technology training,
believes technology has really opened up doors for people with visual
impairment.
“We are no longer limited to the traditional Braille methods of
education. A person with visual impairment can now interact with
machines, create documents, surf the internet and there are now
visually impaired coders,” he says.
Riungu shows the various adaptive technologies that can be used to
carry out these tasks and they include an array of educational,
clinical and leisure devices from talking calculators, talking bibles
to sonar technology smart canes.
"This device scans printed documents and reads it back, while this is
a Braille computer," Riungu says as he demonstrates how each gadget
works.
Riungu lost his sight when he was ten-years-old so he is able to
associate with visual concepts. He is passionate about technology and
has been trained in the mastery of assistive technology through
various programmes in the United Kindgom and in Ghana.
"We have blind students from all walks of life coming here to enhance
their skills. Some are high school graduates while others became blind
in adulthood and they come here to train on adaptive technologies to
enable them live their lives as normally as possible," Riungu says.
He continues: "Previously, we were limited to just teach law, music or
education. But now, with these new technologies, visually impaired
people can study subjects such as mathematics, economics and sciences.
We can now stand at the same footing with everyone else. The sky is
definitely not the limit for us".
Ngondi
--
ERIC N. NGONDI
+254 720 963 825
Skype: ericngondi
Email: eric.ngondi@xxxxxxxxx
Alt. Email: info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
YALI - Mandela Washington Fellow 2014
Ambassador - Kenya Society for The Blind (KSB)
Chairman - Vision Center for Disable Kenya VCDK
"The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare
up the steps - we must step up the stairs." ~ Vance Havner.
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