| The UN Decade on Literacy
and Education
Pecharat Techavachara, the country representative
of ICEVI Thailand, attended the launching of the UN Decade on Literacy
and Education Campaign held in Bangkok in April 2003. ICEVI has dedicated
39 projects being implemented in various regions to the Literacy and Education
Decade of the UN.
Asian Development Bank and Disability
The Asian Development Bank has started a
poverty alleviation programme in four countries - Cambodia, India, Sri
Lanka and The Philippines. This programme has funding to provide vocational
rehabilitation and education. This provision can be used by organizations
in these countries for the benefit of persons with visual impairment.
New Members of the EXCO of ICEVI
During the period January to June 2003,
the Asian Foundation for the Prevention of Blindness (AFPB) and the Organizacion
Nacional de Ciegos Espanoles (ONCE) became members of the Executive Committee
of ICEVI by agreeing to an annual contribution of at least $20,000 to
support the global campaign of ICEVI to create equal educational access
for all children with visual impairment. With this addition, ICEVI EXCO
now has four NGDO members, the other two being Christoffel Blindenmission
and Sight Savers International.
Position paper on Education For All Children with Visual
Impairment:
The first goal of the strategic plan
is to address the global issue of education for all children with visual
impairment by 2015. This is in line with the Dakar Declaration that seeks
to achieve education for all children by 2015 and ICEVI is determined
that this declaration should apply to the education of children with visual
impairment. ICEVI is working through its Regional and Sub-Regional Committees
to influence policy changes at government level in the respective member
countries. A position paper to this effect is being prepared by ICEVI.
ICEVI is currently undertaking a needs assessment, in order to prepare
a comprehensive position paper which can be used by its members in developing
nations to achieve the goal of education for all children with visual
impairment. This position paper will be circulated to Executive Committee
members and discussed at the next meeting of the Executive Committee.
Handbook on Implementation of Lee Foundation Grant
In order to help the Regional Chairpersons
of ICEVI to implement projects under Drs. Richard Charles and Esther Yewpick
Lee Foundation Grant effectively, a handbook of implementation procedures
has been developed by ICEVI.
ON-NET/ICEVI Mathematics Project in the offing
Mathematics is often considered a
difficult subject by teachers of children with visual impairment. Being
aware of this problem world over, ICEVI and the Overbrook-Nippon Network
on Educational Technology (ON-NET) have come up with a joint project to
prepare “master” trainers in the East Asia Region to teach
mathematics to visually impaired children. The technical input for this
project is provided by the Secretary General of ICEVI and Ms. Aree Plernchaivich
from the Thailand. The first meeting of the project was held at Bangkok
on May 24, 2003. The team is currently developing a mathematical package
which will be field tested with teachers and visually impaired learners
and then master trainers will be trained using this package. After trialing
the mathematical learning package for a period of nearly one year, it
will be further refined and published probably by the end of June 2003.
This initiative of ON-NET and ICEVI is likely to help other countries
too once the learning package is finalized.
ICEVI-LCIF Collaboration
The President of ICEVI and the President
of the Lions Clubs International Foundation had a meeting on April 29,
2003 and discussed possible collaboration between the organizations to
help education of children with visual impairment. ICEVI is in the process
of preparing a major proposal for this collaboration. In the meantime,
ICEVI has requested its regional chairpersons to explore the possibilities
for LCIF affiliated programmes in their region. ICEVI hopes this collaboration
will be fruitful in addressing yet another goal of international collaboration.
More news about this collaboration will be made available in subsequent
issues of The Educator.
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