As part efforts to support the educational needs of physically challenged students, MCJ Support, with support from US State Department on Monday donated high end braille printer and some laptops to the Gambia Organization for the Visually Impaired (GOVI) at a ceremony held in Kanifing.
MCJSupport Org and Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education have been working closely with the STED-CREDD department on capacity building of teachers and support projects to use supplementary resources to make learning accessible and easy for students to understand through hands-on activities, also promote all-inclusive education by providing learning environment for the blind, deaf and children with down syndromes.
The donation came following an appeal launched by GOVI for support from MCJ support.
“Leveraging our partnership with the US State Department, we are able to convince them for an urgent support, through this project my office purchased a braille printer and six laptops for the Gambia Organization for the Visually Impaired (GOVI) school in Kanifing. We will further build the capacity of the regional instructors on how to use computers for the blind, facilitate the unification of the national syllabus to braille for blind students across the country starting with English,” the founder of MCJSupport Org, Muhammed Chuka Joof said while dedicating the project to his late grandfather- Makou Tiyanna Ceesay, who used to be an instructor for the visually impaired in CRR.
“This is a continuation of his wonderful work in improving the livelihood skills of the visually impaired in The Gambia,” Muhammed said.
He urged the Ministry and GOVI to take full ownership of the project in order to implement the unification of the national syllabus to braille, for the interest of national development,
“We thank the U.S. Embassy Banjul, The Gambia for supporting our Blind Support Program. This is not a surprise as we know how much the Embassy is particular about critical issues of our society and ways on how to solve or improve them,” he said.
“As a non-profit in The Gambia, we renew our commitment to enhancing self-paced education and easy access to learning resources a top priority, not leaving any part of the education sphere behind. This is why we are more than happy to always support the most vulnerable in our education system to providing education for all children and youths of The Gambia,” he added.
Gambian blind students find it very challenging to follow lessons and limitations to access educational resources due to their medium of learning. With this support, there is hope that they too can access technology and smooth learning.
