Leading the way
Thousands of blind people in Sierra Leone will have a freer future, after Sightsavers donated 2,040 white canes to the Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs as part of the Sierra Leone Community Based Rehabilitation/Empowerment Project for the Blind (SLCBR/EPB) on 1 August 2008.
SLCBR/EPB was formed in 2005 with the aim of improving the status of visually impaired people, and to help empower them to fulfil roles as active members in their communities. So far the project has identified 3,000 blind people from four districts in 26 chiefdoms in the country.
Helping people move freely
Many of these people are already on the roads guided by a white cane, as this consignment was just one of many donations by Sightsavers. Delivery of the canes is greeted with great relief as many of the recipients were previously largely immobile. The canes mean that blind people will have far greater freedom of movement, allowing children to get to school, and adults to participate in their routine community life, including gardening, housework, community activities, meetings and petty trading, which SLCBR/EPB supports in collaboration with a local micro finance NGO.
SLCBR/EPB provides training for visually impaired people at all levels, and has also helped change the communities’ views on blindness, promoting social inclusion of visually impaired people.
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