By Albert Futukpor
Tamale, Sept 13, GNA – A total of 28 visually impaired pupils and students in the Northern region have received financial support to cater for some of their educational needs as well as help to transport them back to school.
Each of them received an amount of GHc250.00.
Due to the lack of a school for the blind or an integrated school in the region to admit them, the beneficiaries face the daunting task of travelling to Wa in the Upper West region every term to attend the Wa School for the Blind to acquire formal education.
This places enormous financial challenges on their parents, who already find it difficult to adequately cater for their educational needs hence the decision by the Centre for Active Learning and Integrated Development (CALID), a non-government organisation, with support from Vibrant Village Foundation, to extend the financial support to them.
Mr Mohammed Awal Sumani Bapio, Executive Director of CALID, speaking at the Disability Centre in Tamale to present the financial package to the beneficiaries, said it was to alleviate some of their challenges.
He said: “We worked with the Ghana Blind Union over a year ago on a health project, and we realised that they also have key challenges in the area of education as well.
“They do not have school in the region for their visually impaired children. The children travel to Wa every term to attend school. They also do not learn or read during vacation because they do not have brail” hence our support.
Mr Bapio appealed to the Government to build a school for the blind in Tamale to cater for blind students in the region such that they would not have to be travelling to and from Wa every term.
He also called on government and other stakeholders to support in brail to enable the beneficiaries read and learn whilst on vacation in the region.
He commended parents of the beneficiaries for their commitment to send their visually impaired children to school saying their efforts must be emulated especially when there were other parents, who decided to hide their special needs children.
Madam Hanifa Fuseini, Northern Regional Assessment Officer in-charge of Intellectual Disability, Northern Regional Directorate of Education, expressed hope that the Ghana Education Service would soon designate a school in Tamale for inclusive education to admit blind students in the region.
Mr Imoro Mohammed, Northern Regional Secretary, Ghana Blind Union, said hundreds of visually impaired children in the region could not afford formal education because their parents did not have the means to send them to the Wa School for the Blind.
Mr Yakubu Haruna, a smallholder farmer from Lamashegu, a suburb of Tamale, whose two children, a 15-year-old form one girl, and a 10-year-old class two boy, were part of the beneficiaries, said the financial support from CALID was a great relief to him.
Mr Haruna said he was wondering how to afford his children’s transport fares and other items to enable them to go back to school adding “So, I am very grateful for the support from CALID.”
Madam Sumaya Fuseini, a resident of Sognayili in the Sagnarigu Municipality, whose 10-year-old daughter was a beneficiary, also expressed gratitude to CALID for the support, which would go a long way to lessen the burden on her.
GNA