How to Make Orientation & Mobility Skills Affordable and Available to Blind People in Developing Countries
By William Rowland, President, South African National Council for the Blind (Rowland@sancb.org.za)
Orientation and Mobility (O&M) has been called "the key to independence" for blind people. I think this is true, at least to the extent that getting around is a problem sometimes, and that the white cane offers an elegant solution.
The use of a "long" white cane, combined with a rhythmic scanning technique, enables the blind person to travel safely and gracefully in both town and country. The learning of this skill has become the very foundation of independence training, while the teachers of the technique have emerged as professionals in their own right, with the associated terminology, research, technology, and of course conferences.
Which is not to say that the 11th International Mobility Conference (IMC11) was not a significant event. Because it was exactly that, for 254 delegates from 41 countries, and hopefully for countless prospective blind students who will benefit from new knowledge and enthusiasm.
I shall not attempt to summarize the proceedings of IMC11 (the PowerPoint presentations, research reports, panel discussions, award ceremony, and gala dinner). After all, what I wish to say is about O&M itself and not about the proceedings. It is about the delivery of O&M services to resource-deprived communities, even in situations "where there are no O&M instructors," as one delegate put it, in deference to David Werner's "Where There Are No Doctors".
The World Blind Union takes the view that rehabilitation services for blind and partially sighted persons should include at least three basic elements: O&M, literacy, and low vision assistance. The task of the O&M instructor today extends beyond the mere teaching of the long cane technique to the imparting of independence skills generally. In industrialized countries O&M instructors have become an integral part of the training team in many types of service setting where, typically, they work one on one with individual clients.
But this is not a practical or affordable solution for Africa, or for developing countries anywhere. How then are O&M services to be promoted and delivered in such counties? Who should take the responsibility and how do we multiply such training opportunities?
These were the very questions confronted in a post-conference seminar on development that attracted some 30 participants at the end of IMC11. And it was Bob Jaekle - an American who single-handedly has established O&M programmes in many parts of Asia - who got us started with an unequivocal point of view: it is the responsibility of governments to provide O&M services. In India and elsewhere NGO's have given the lead, but both regional and national governments have subsequently taken up the challenge. According to Bob it is no coincidence that the only Asian countries lacking such services are those under communist rule - North Korea, Vietnam, and China.
David Botwey of Ghana described how volunteers are deployed in rural areas to train blind villagers. Transport and food are paid for, but nothing else. Such personnel are engaged on a one-year-contract and it would seem that the hope of employment sustains these workers, although it must be wishful thinking in many cases.
At Optima College in Pretoria a method of group instruction is applied. In her PowerPoint presentation, Sma Ndlovu showed how an instructor, with a single assistant, could train as many as ten blind people simultaneously. In other parts of the world where group instruction is given, students take turns to practise, but in South Africa people participate all at once.
In South Africa at least four different service models are used to provide O&M instruction. Urban-based agencies tend to offer the traditional type of service at some central facility or through an outreach programme in the community. The South African Mobility Trust, on the other hand, employs a cadre of O&M instructors which are deployed on demand to various parts of the country and then withdrawn when applications run out.
In the province of Mpumalanga the Department of Health supports an ongoing O&M programme district by district. In contrast, the Department of Education in the Free State sponsors an adult basic education and training (ABET) project in three township communities which is inclusive of mobility training. None of these models is necessarily superior, and possibly it does not matter which mechanism is actually used, as long as skills training is made accessible.
A fascinating and very different hypothesis was put forward by Benny Pizer of the Christoffel Blindenmission. According to Benny, in every community anywhere in the world there is at least one person who takes an interest in disabled people. Wherever resources are lacking, this is where to begin.
Much troubled by repeated reports of blind people who refuse to be identified with the white cane, I thought it important to make a final point at the close of the development seminar: besides the white cane being a means to an end, an instrument of free movement, it is also an advocacy tool. Whenever we take on the activist role, demonstrating publicly for our rights or resisting the discriminatory rules of authority, we gain immeasurably in confidence, white cane in hand. The white cane is not so much a symbol of blindness, as a symbol of our independence as blind people.
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