Members of the forum for people with vision impairment (Rwanda Union of the Blind) have commended the government of Rwanda for assistance delivered to them in their daily life.
Mugisha Jacques will graduate this year (2012) from the National University of Rwanda in school of Journalism and communication.
He said that since he began to study until now, he has found no difficulties in handling production tasks despite of sight disability.
” It is possible; I work together with camera man. I use my sound recorder and after having all necessary information from field, I come back for editing tasks and those in charge of mixing images with audio clips, they use my narration voice in order to have an audio visual product” Mugisha said.
Today Mugisha works at Rwanda television as an intern journalist.
Apart from blind people who work in media sector, there are others who have graduated and now work in different institutions both public or private.
Innocent graduated in Kigali Institute of Education and today he is a teacher of ICT in Rwamagana.
Among difficulties reported by blind people; they said the most challenge they meet are people who think that people with sight disabilities cannot perform any task and this is likely to end up with employment denial because of vision disabilities.
In an example given during their visit in Ngoma District while explaining their potential, people with sight disability pointed out that some time they are prevented from participating in development activities.
They said some are deprived a chance to benefit from “Gira inka” in Southern province where local leaders never considered them saying that they cannot care for cows because they are blind and some who were given cows were taken away again saying they are not capable of rearing cows.
However, blind people said they have got different skills in agriculture and animal husbandry, and hence there is no need to deny them to benefit from development activities such as “ Gira inka munyarwanda” and many others.
Currently the union of blinds in Rwanda counts 35 blinds who are studying in different Universities, 12 have graduated and 3 are working in different institutions in Rwanda.
In secondary schools, the number of vision impaired people is higher than the number in Universities due to government initiative that promotes equal access to education without excluding people with disabilities.
In 2008, the first blind people in Rwanda registered for University studies while in 1996 the first blind people attended secondary school
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