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| Caption: Mr Rockliffe Bowen (left) and Mr Joan Moses. |
Charlestown Nevis (May 18, 2004) -- Blind persons in the Federation of St. Kitts and Nevis will soon have the opportunity to learn how to use the Braille method to enable them to both read and write.
Vice President of the St. Kitts Society for the Blind and Visually Impaired Persons, Mr Joan Moses, has said that his organisation has received funding from the Barbados-based Canadian Foundation for Local Initiatives to start Braille classes at the McKnight Community Centre in Basseterre.
Speaking to GIS in Nevis on Saturday, Mr Moses who is also the chairperson of the North Eastern Zone of the Caribbean Council for the Blind said: “Right now we are looking at getting the equipment which would consist of six Perkins Braille-writers, Braille writing paper as well as Braille-reading literature.”
The equipment would be sourced through the Perkins School for Blind in the USA and only when it arrives in about two to three months time that the classes would start. He noted that there are about five persons who have enrolled, but the society is looking forward to getting more persons, including those who have limited sight.
“For blind and visually impaired persons it would be free”, observed Mr Moses, when asked how much it will cost for one to enrol. “But as time goes on, persons with full sight who would like to be trained then they would have to pay something.”
Mr Moses is expected to be the tutor as he is the only person on the island that can read and write Braille. The classes would as a result be held in the evening because he has a demanding 8-4 job during the day.
Meanwhile, President of the St. Kitts Society for the Blind and Visually Impaired Persons, Mr Rockliffe Bowen, reported that the organisation recently received an EC$42,000.00 grant from the Canadian Foundation for Local Initiatives to help start a computer training programme.
“We were able to purchase six computers with a special software that enables blind persons to use the computer, and we set up our computer lab at the McKnight Community Centre,” said Mr Bowen. “We have currently seven persons attending training and five of those persons are totally blind.”
Mr Bowen and Mr Moses who were in Nevis on Saturday attending the annual symposium organised by the Nevis Blind Light and Visually Impaired Society held at the Nevis Red Cross Building also announced that the symposium for the St. Kitts Society for the Blind Visually Impaired Persons would be held on Saturday May 29 at the McKnight Community Centre starting from 9:30 a.m.
