Date	Publication	Topic
July 22, 2009, 7-8 AM	Citizen TV	Education for Blind Youth
July 21, 2009, 7-8 AM	Citizen radio	Rehabilitation – Emma Wambui’s journey
July 19, 2009	Standard newspaper	Competing Favourably in the Sighted World
July 19, 2009	Wimwaro Radio	Interview with KUB’s Chairperson, Dr. Chomba
July 11, 2009, 8 PM	KBC’s BizWeek	Computers and Assistive Technology
June 19, 2009	eWeek Europe	Digital Divide Twitterthon Yields 7000 PCs For Africa
June 2009	Impact CUSO-VSO	Seeking a Bright Future for Kenya

 

Competing favourably in the sighted world
Published on 19/07/2009
By Joe Ambuor

When 65-year-old Julius Mutemi, who has been blind for over 50 years, speaks, laughs, walks or cracks a joke, he elicits nothing but admiration.

And when Lucy Njoki Ngare, now blind for close to two years, teaches biology in a Form Two class at St Joseph’s Kiariga Mixed Secondary School next to her Kerugoya home, her intellect, competence and dedication are evident. Her engrossed students take notes in silence.

Elsewhere in Kerugoya town, a group of visually impaired people gather at a makeshift soap-making factory that they run.

The chairman of the soap industry, Karamani Munene, sees only shadows having been rendered partially blind decades ago. It is amazing to see him supervise the mixing of animal and vegetable fats, caustic soda, sulphuric acid, salt, colour and perfume in the right quantities to yield soap at the recommended temperature.

It is not by fluke that Mutemi is chairman of the Kirinyaga branch of the Kenya Union of the Blind (KUB) and its representative for Central Province. He is warm, outgoing, confident and entertaining.

Sample this: We are south of Kerugoya town buying sweet potatoes and other fresh farm produce by the road side when suddenly, a matatu zooms past and stops several metres away on a busy thoroughfare. Mutemi promptly waves us goodbye and dashes across the road to board the matatu as though he can actually see it.

More mesmerising to us is that he does not ask to be helped across the road. He just sprints alone, leaving us tongue-tied.

He says the secret behind his confidence is his ability to accurately estimate the distance of an oncoming vehicle from the sound of its engine.

Earlier, Mutemi had surprised us by acting as the guide for our driver on our way to his home from Kerugoya. As we approached a dirt junction that leads to his home, he asked the driver to slow down and turn into the side road on his right. "It is only a few minutes drive to my home from here," he said as we marvelled aloud.

"Now, we have arrived. Those houses you see on the left. . . that is my home," he said.

The sighted women who received us included his wife of 30 years, Elizabeth Kamene, and daughter-in-law Rose Njeri Muriuki with his five-year-old granddaughter, Cynthia Mukami, in tow. He introduced us enthusiastically to his family.

Endurance and determination

Mutemi’s story is one of endurance and determination to lead as near a normal life as possible despite his blindness. He has never seen his wife because he was already blind when he first met her in 1970. What attracted him to her?

"Her voice. I could tell it from the way she spoke that she was attractive and kind. From the way a person speaks, a lot comes out that requires only keenness to interpret. You do not need to see the person physically to have an idea about his or her character and physical appeal," Mutemi says with a smile.

"I can tell you details about my children, everything from their character, complexion, physical build and height, yet I have never seen them. Likewise, I know any road or path that I use frequently the way I know the back of my hand. I know precisely where the sharp corners, potholes, hills or slopes are."

So confident and knowledgeable is Mutemi that he guides other blind people around if sighted people are not available.

Kamene says she could not resist Mutemi’s overtures in spite of his blindness.

"He was handsome, intelligent and possessed all the attributes of a responsible man,"she said. His blindness was secondary to what I was looking for in a future husband and the father of my children. I knew that with my assistance, there was nothing he could not achieve.

"Moreover, I was not marrying an invalid. He had a steady income as a telephone operator and I was a nurse at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi at the time.

Today, Mutemi and Kamene are proud parents and grandparents who engage in farming. They grow maize, beans and bananas and keep cows and pigs on their eight acre piece of land.

Mutemi and his group of 40 visually impaired colleagues have added farming to their accomplishments. While each of them does subsistence farming, they collectively plant rice on a five-acre farm at the Mwea Irrigation Scheme.

To competitively market their produce, the group have booked a stall at the soon to be completed multi-million shilling Kerugoya market. To bail them out, the Kenya Union of the Blind has paid Sh100, 000 for the stall and provided them with computers.

Mutemi is a busy man. Always smartly dressed in a suit and tie to match, he attends meetings in Kerugoya, at the provincial headquarters in Nyeri and, occasionally, in Nairobi.

World of darkness

He was in Standard Four when he went to sleep with normal eyesight one night, only to wake up in the world of darkness.

"I had not been sick. My parents were devastated when no amount of treatment could reverse the situation. They eventually took me to Thika School for the Blind where I learnt Braille."

The Uplands Bacon Factory later hired him as a telephone operator.

Ngare had been a chemistry teacher for many years at Kerugoya Boys’ High School before she transferred to St Joseph’s Kiariga, which is closer to her home, after the death of her husband.

"All was well until I developed an eye disease in August, 2007. My eyes were red and watering when I sought assistance at Kerugoya District Hospital from where I was referred to a special eye clinic in Kiambu.

"There, a doctor who probably was not sure of what he was doing injected me on both eyes. The pain was unbearable.

"I realised I would probably not see again when I woke up at night seeing only red and with a severe headache. I was in total darkness by daybreak."

Ngare was later informed by a different doctor at the hospital that the injection had cost her sight.

"He said the doctor who had injected me had made a mistake as blood had mixed with clear liquid in the eye ball. Only a miracle would clear away the blood to enable me see again."

When she resumed her teaching career, Ngare switched from chemistry to biology because of the danger of her handling the chemicals that go with chemistry practical lessons.

"The Ministry of Education was supportive and even employed a reader for me."

The reader, who is always with her in class, dictates her notes to the students at the end of every lesson.

To simplify her work, she now uses a computer.

 

Digital Divide Twitterthon Yields 7000 PCs For Africa
19-06-2009, By Andrew Donoghue

But Computer Aid wants to source another 3000 machines over the next month

IT charity Computer Aid says that the UK's first Twitterthon has resulted in 7000 PCs being donated to schools and hospitals in the developing world thanks to organisations such as Sainsbury's and Islington College.

Computer Aid, which takes old but still functioning PCs from UK businesses and refurbishes them for use in countries such as Kenya, held the Twitterthon on Tuesday. The event consisted of a four hour call for fans of the charity's Twitter identity Computer_Aid to highlight the work of the organisation on the micro-blogging site and also to pledge PCs for donation.

According to Computer Aid, UK retailer Sainsbury's pledged to donate up to 5000 machines, while City and Islington College plans to donate several hundred more PCs and laptops to before the end of this year.

“The support from Twitter users was fantastic and generated widespread awareness of our cause and our need for more IT equipment," said Computer Aid founder and chief executive Tony Roberts. "The progress we have made in the last ten years has made a significant impact in helping to bridge the global digital divide. However, when you consider that in sub-Saharan Africa alone there are still only five or less PCs per 1,000 people, it’s evident there is so much more we can do to assist other countries in enriching education, and improving health and medical care."

Roberts added that although the charity is pleased with the success of the Twitterthon - it has a target to hit 10,000 donated PCs over the next four weeks. "We hope the Twitterthon has helped us to capture the public’s imagination and that other supporters will come forward to donate the 3,000 additional PCs that we need to meet our target,” he said.

Laptops are particularly important in countries such as Kenya where they are used by blind students and teachers to provide portable access to learning materials - most of which are not available in braille due to costs involved of printing textbooks and other materials. Computer Aid is working with organistions such as the Kenyan Union of the Blind to develop open source screen-reading and audio software to enable blind students to access computer-based information.

Computer Aid says it has refurbished more than 130,000 PCs and laptops, all of which are being used to support e-learning, e-health, e-inclusion and e-agriculture projects in countries such as Kenya, Madagascar and Zambia.

Although some critics have raised concerns about sending PC equipment to developing countries claiming it could lead to increased dumping of so-called e-waste in areas not equipped to deal with it safely - Computer Aid says it only ships refurbished machines and is firmly against sending broken equipment abroad. "Anyone shipping unprocessed WEEE [Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment] should be jailed," said Roberts.

http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/digital-divide-twitterthon-yields-7000-pcs-for-africa-1177

 

SEEKING A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR KENYA
June 2009         ByYvette Macabuag

As Fundraising and Publicity Officer for the Kenya Union of the Blind (KUB), overseas volunteer Tali Alexander isn’t able to get out into the filed as much as she’d like.

“But when I see these programs in action and the impact they have on people’s lives it just makes me want to work harder,” she says.

Lives like five-year-old Aisha, who was born blind into a very poor family in an impoverished community, where visual impairments can be considered a curse. Her mother abandoned Aisha and her father, taking Aisha’s brothers and sisters with her. While her father was away at work most of the day, Aisha was looked after by kind women in her village. Aisha’s father also eventually abandoned her, leaving Aisha to the care of her extended family and some kind-hearted neighbours in their village.

Tali, who hails from Ottawa, accompanied the team from KUB when they went to offer Aisha’s uncle a placement for her in a school that was equipped to handle her disability.

“KUB gave her the opportunity to go to a school where she would be accepted, where she could learn in an environment that would be easy for her, and where she could have the love and support networks she needs to grow to her full potential,” says Tali.

Unfortunately, the terrified little five-year-old couldn’t understand that a tremendously wonderful chapter in her life was about to be written.

“For the entire hour-and-a-half of the car ride to the school, she had her hands over her ears because she was so scared,” says Tali.

“But last week my colleague went to visit her and reports that Aisha is just thriving in her new environment. She was happy, smiling and laughing, and she’d made tons of new friends. I know she’ll do really well there.”

Happy endings like these fuel Tali’s drive to raise money and awareness for Kenya’s only national association of blind and visually impaired people. With more than 43 branches throughout the country, KUB focuses on three program areas: child education and social protection; technology and empowerment for youth; and mentorship and empowerment for adults.

A lot of her time is spent writing grant proposals and meeting with potential international, national and local donors to solicit financial support to KUB. She’s also responsible for all communications – both internally to members about KUB activities across Kenya, and externally to the general public to raise awareness about challenges and opportunities for visually impaired people.

“There is still an acute stigma associated with blindness in Kenya that starts at early age. I’ve heard of cases where family friends didn’t even know they had a blind child. They were just put away in a room when the friend visited,” says Tali.

When children grow up, the barriers continue, with few work opportunities open to them. KUB works to increase their independence with the help of assistive devices, adaptive equipment and support services, and helps them achieve economic self-reliance through small business development and job placements.

KUB is also working hard to reduce the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on visually impaired people, who many falsely believe are not sexually active.

“Once again, visually impaired people are being left out when HIV/AIDS awareness programs are being developed,” she says. “When you consider that more than 1% of Kenya’s 37 million population is visually impaired, that’s a huge number of people who are missing vital and potentially life-saving information.”

KUB is taking a two-pronged approach to the issue – developing accessible HIV/AIDS education materials for visually impaired people, while at the same time working to sensitize the mainstream to their needs.

Although the pace of change is slower than Tali knew back in Canada, she says there’s absolutely no shortage of work to do.

“I think if there were three of me, we would still keep busy!” she says, smiling. “But even on my bad days, I’m really happy to be here. I’m grateful for this opportunity – it’s tremendously fulfilling and I’m excited about what comes next!”

This page requires KUB to have the ability to add articles and links as new articles are published.
Articles should be able to be added as a web page in HTML format.  (pdf files are generally not accessible to visually impaired persons)