Visually impaired female students of Akropong School for the Blind in the Eastern region have called on stakeholders to pay special attention to the needs of females with visual impairment.
The female visually impaired students believe much has not to be done to support vulnerable visually impaired girls in the country.
According to the Ghana Health Service, a total of 227,920 Ghanaians are blind.
The 2021fingures indicate that 54.8per cent of the blindness was caused by Cataracts, while 19.4per cent was due to Glaucoma with 12.3per cent caused by post-segment diseases like diabetes and 11.2per cent from Cornea- related diseases.
Additionally, 329,560 Ghanaians had severe visual impairment while 579,040 had moderate impairment.
As Ghana joined the world on Tuesday, March 8, 2022, to celebrate international women’s day under the theme Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow”, visually impaired female students of Akropong School for the Blind in the Eastern region want stakeholders to pay attention to their needs including issues of menstrual hygiene management and sexual abuses.
Rita Takyi, a female visually impaired student defying all odds and breaking the biases to further her education despite her vulnerability told Mybrytnewsroom.com, “We need help for menstrual hygiene management. We want people to help us every month with sanitary pads and detol to help us maintain hygiene during our menstrual period”.
She added “Some of us our parents are unable to give us money when coming to school so we solely depend on the benevolence of people to get access to some of these essential things. When someone is visually impaired she needs support to also further her education so that she doesn’t become a burden for family”.
Helena Gorman, another visually impaired student also appealed to the government and individuals “to support visually impaired females. Sometimes men take undue advantage of our situation to impregnate us and run away because we can’t identify them. So my appeal is that we support visually impaired females to go to school even if the person can’t go to school at least she must learn a vocation to economically empower them”.
The visually impaired female students said this when sharing their opinions about International women’s day at the sidelines of a donation by Delta Paper Mill Limited producers of Flora Disposable tissues to the school as part of its corporate social responsibility dubbed “Flora Cares”.
The Marketing Director of Delta Paper Mill Limited Barbara Incoom told the media that, the donation is to improve sanitation, hygiene, and good health of the students.
She also stated that “Akropong School for the Blind has been on our hearts for a while now, and you know we have a CSR project call flora cares and since last year we’ve been visiting and donating to schools especially schools with Kids that have special needs. Today, being international women’s day we thought it wise to come today because there are young girls here who need to know that people care and love them so we decided to come today and just this past Sunday was Ghana’s Independence Day and today also happens to be the birthday of our brand Ambassador Serwaa Amihere so it is three in one”.
Gideon Doryi, donation Committee Chairman of the Akropong School for the Blind said the donation will go a long way to help improve the sanitation and hygiene of the students.
Gideon Doryi, donation Committee Chairman of the Akropong School for the Blind said the donation will go a long way to help improve the hygiene of the students.
Gideon Doryi appealed to parents of children with disability to prioritize the needs of the children, especially in terms of education.
“Some of the children are brought here by foster parents so it is only a few of the parents most are very responsible but at times some is a hierarchy they have to see to the sighted siblings before coming down to these people so most of the parents are doing well some too we are appealing to them that children here are useful. So we are appealing to parents and society in general that they should not underestimate their capabilities”
The Akropong School for the Blind is a government-supported school that was established in 1945 by Presbyterian missionaries in Akropong, Ghana.
It is the first school for the blind in West Africa.
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com/Obed Ansah
