KUB's resource centre for youth with visual impairments
on A Serendipitous Journey (Kenya), 18/Mar/2010 09:42, 34 days ago
This past Tuesday, the Ambassador of Germany Mrs. Margit Hellwig-Boette officially launched the Reproductive Health, Gender Based Violence and Human Rights Resource Centre for Youth with Visual Impairments at the Kenya Union of the Blind.The purpose of the Resource Centre is to reduce vulnerability of youth with visual impairments to violations of their rights through increasing their access to information on sexual and reproductive health, gender based violence and human rights in alternative formats, including digital text, MP3, digital talking books, large print and Braille. The Centre offers free internet access and computer training to youth with visual impairments, allowing them to access information at their leisure. Youth are able to hone their skills by working in the Resource Centre, which produces materials in accessible formats as an income generating activity to support KUB projects.The official launch ceremony began with a tour whereby the Ambassador and other distinguished guests visited the production centre where materials are produced in accessible formats and the computer room where youth with impairments demonstrated how to use computers with assistive technology software. This was followed by the formal program including entertainment by our youth leadership team, testimonials from program beneficiaries, addresses from KUB, the GTZ Country Director, the GTZ Health Sector Programme leader, other partners who have helped grow the Centre, and the Ambassador of Germany. It was a grand success with representation from our partners, beneficiaries and donors, who were all very pleased at the progress the Centre has made so far.This is a very exciting initiative for KUB and something we have been looking forward to officially launching for almost a year. It will be very interesting to see where the Centre will be in another year, as we’re all predicting great things for it!Factoids regarding persons with visual impairment and access to information- Of all blind people worldwide, 90% live in poor communities (1) and the World Bank estimates that persons with disabilities comprise about 20% of the poorest of the poor.(2)- Approximately 518,000 Kenyans (1.4% of the population) are visually impaired (3)- Visual impairment is not distributed uniformly throughout the world. Approximately 87% of visually impaired people live in developing countries. (4)- Studies consistently indicate that females have a significantly higher risk of being visually impaired than males, in every region of the world, and at all ages. (5) In Kenya, prevalence is higher in females (55%) than males (45%) (6)- Generally there is no deliberate action to deny participation or services to visually impaired persons, however given that they must access and process information in a different way, the absence of special measures results in exclusion. In Kenya, most publicly available information by governments, NGOs and microfinance institutions is visual and thus inaccessible to the blind person, including critical information on reproductive health, gender based violence and human rights.(1)State of the World’s Sight: Vision 2020: The Right to Sight 1999-2005. (WHO and Int’l Agency for the Prevention of Blindness) http://www.who.int/pbd/blindness/vision_2020/v2020_therighttosight.pdf(2)Elwan, A.: Poverty and Disability : a survey of literature. World Bank. 1999(3)Kenya National Survey for Persons with Disabilities. 2007.(4)http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/index.html)(5)http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs282/en/index.html).(6)Kenya National Survey for Persons with Disabilities. 2007.