Africa, East Asia,
Latin America and West Asia
One of the milestone events of our 50th anniversary celebrations was the formal launching of a new initiative
on education for blind children in Africa, East Asia, Latin America,
and West Asia regions supported by a matching grant of US$
500,000 from Drs. Richard Charles and
Esther Yewpick Lee Charitable Foundation (LCF).
This new
initiative will assist ICEVI in expanding access to education for blind and low
vision children in Africa, East Asia, Latin America and West Asia regions by supporting programs in three
major areas.
F Creating
greater awareness of
the capabilities of blind and low vision persons.
F Strengthening
the skills of teachers
to allow them to integrate blind and low vision children into community,
schools and
F Developing
innovative model programs that will both expand access to education for blind and low vision
children and improve the quality of those educational services.
Working with a consortium of international non-government organizations
and other donors, ICEVI is generating matching funds that will generate at
least US $ 1,000,000 to be used to improve the situation of children in our Africa, East Asia, Latin America and West Asia regions where currently less then 10% of
children with visual impairment have access to any form of education.
On August 2, 2003 educators from more than 100 countries saluted this
generous grant from the Drs. Richard Charles and Esther Yewpick Lee Charitable
Foundation (LCF) which will allow ICEVI to improve the lives of blind children
and their families by breaking the cycle of illiteracy and poverty.
The Africa, East Asia, Latin America, and West Asia regions have already prepared more than 100
project proposals addressing the objectives of the grant and the activities
will start soon. In the year 2003,
nearly 3000 teachers of children with visual impairment will update their
knowledge in teaching these children through various workshops and inservice
courses to be organized under the LCF grant.
More than 2000 parents and organizations of parents will be involved to
increase the enrolment of children with visual impairment in schools in
developing nations. The Government
machineries will also be sensitized to the educational needs of children with
visual impairment in order to develop an inclusive society for them.
In short, the developments so far are satisfactory and ICEVI is
determined to maintain the momentum built in the Netherlands to make a difference in the education of
persons with visual impairment in the Africa, East Asia, Latin America,
and West Asia regions, with the assistance of Drs. Richard
Charles and Esther Yewpick Lee Charitable Foundation. The contribution of LCF, indeed is timely
for ICEVI to push forward its global agenda of education for all children with
visual impairment by 2015.