Eagle Voice International for Disability Rights, an NGO, has trained 10 young visually impaired ladies on Information Communications Technology (ICT) mobility and the use of navigation tools for movement.
The Executive Director, Eagle Voice, Oluwakemi Odusanya, disclosed this to newsmen in Lagos.
Odusanya said that the training was important, to enable the young ladies between ages 22 and 52 to integrate themselves into the larger society like their sighted friends and colleagues.
“In the last eight weeks, we had 10 blind and partially sighted women across different spaces in Lagos.
“They underwent ICT training in IT tools like the use of computer with screen reader for daily and professional use in topics like Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, and the basic use of the computer as well as communication and gestures.
“So in this aspect, they were taught how to interact with each other, some were first time interactions where they had a lot of visual impaired persons around.
“We also had the mobility orientation class where they had to learn how to use the white cane as a symbol of navigation around from their houses down to this place.
“So, we had 10 visually impaired persons across ranging from the age 22 to 52, to teach them all these important skills,” Odusanya said.
The executive director said that she was motivated to train the visually impaired ladies because she saw a need and a disconnect in the community of the visually impaired in skills gap, compared to their male counterparts.
“I recall when I had one year training at Leadership Training Institute in India, where I was taught how to develop and be a social change maker.
“I realised that actually there is a gap between the visually impaired women and the men in the community.
“When it comes to skills we have less women who have a knowledge of how to use computer or even how to work independently or even out to interact within the community.
“And this has been a challenge, a very great challenge actually in the community,” Odusanyua said.
She said that the experience led her to focus on the blind and visually impaired women and to bring out the abilities in them.
“Some of them are facing a lot but they don’t know who to talk to and how to go about it.
“I, being a live experience, have been blind for over 15 years and I saw that there is a need; why not take this up within my community.
“So from there I set up a proposal to International Blind Football Foundation and they gave us a small grant to be able to do this two months exclusive training for the blind and visually impaired women,” Odusanya said.
She said that she intended to seek further collaboration with various foundations to scale up the training to reach more visually impaired ladies and for a longer duration.
According to her, the foundation in the nearest future, will create a hub for career development for visually impaired women where they can share their experiences and motivate each other to acquire skills.
She urged all women out there who are visually impaired to avail themselves of these opportunities to acquire life skills for employment.
The trainees expressed appreciation to the Eagles Voice International for Disability Rights for the opportunity granted them.
