First graduates of the Institute of academic techniques for the Visually Impaired and Blind in Issia, Côte d'Ivoire
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The Institute of academic techniques for the Visually Impaired and Blind, located in the town of Issia, western Côte d'Ivoire, presented (on July 10, 2021) its first seventeen graduates who have just completed three years of training. The Institute of academic techniques for the Visually Impaired and Blind is an educational institution for children with vision impairment or blindness aged between 3 to 10-11. The Institute teaches Braille, a tactile reading and writing system for persons with vision impairment or blindness and prepares the students for integration into the traditional education system upon graduation.
The Institute was created in 2018; however, due to lack of funding, specialized Braille educators could not devote all their time to teaching and were forced to work in cocoa plantations to make a living. In January 2020, Jean-Paul Millier, the president of Aveugles sans Frontières, a French association created by blind people to help and improve the daily lives of other blind people, presented a project aimed to finance a full-time Braille teacher for the Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Issia. The project also sought to obtain a Braille printer and textbooks for the Institute.
During the graduation ceremony on July 10, 2021, the director of the Institute of academic techniques for the Visually Impaired and Blind in Issia, Mr. Lebato Aimé (who is visually impaired himself), encouraged families to send blind or visually impaired children to his Institute. Director Aimé further emphasized that by doing so, the parents would provide their children with an opportunity to receive an education and better integrate into society in the future.
For more information, please see https://www.aip.ci/cote-
