Abugre Abaa, who has been blind for forty years, was taught day-to-day living skills by a rehabilitation project in Bongo, Ghana © Suzanne Porter / Sightsavers

Rehabilitation

Teaching basic daily living skills is one of the key ways of enabling people who are irreversibly blind to live with some kind of independence. This could include making their way around their town or village with a white cane, preparing food, dressing themselves or taking care of their own personal hygiene. Enabling people to do these kinds of simple activities means that they will require less assistance from their family and, hopefully, it will help to increase their confidence.

Vocational training

Being blind shouldn't mean that people are prevented from providing for themselves and their families. With some vocational training, there are a variety of jobs that they can do, from farming to setting up small businesses, from shopkeeping to craft production.

Trainer training

One of the key areas of our work is in training people to act as rehabilitation workers in their communities. They can then help to provide support to people in the area who are irreversibly blind, as well as providing advice to the sighted members of the community.

Advocacy

Sightsavers is strengthening the leadership, fundraising and technical skills of local organisations who are working to secure the rights of people who are blind. We also help them to lobby local and regional government to make sure these rights are respected not just in theory, but also in practice.

Achievements

 

Rehabilitation statistics

Working with partners in 2010 we helped to:

• Train 2,623 teachers to support with visually impaired children in the classroom
•  Provide basic daily living skills training to over 4,577 blind people
•  Train 3,513 rehabilitation workers