ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia

A graduate in Social Work from Addis Ababa University, visually challenged Bethlehem Giday, in her early 30s had lost hope to get a job anywhere, till she got help from a civil society group to learn computer skills.

Many civil society groups in the landlocked African country of Ethiopia, have been successfully making efforts to empower visually challenged people by facilitating their computer-assisted learning.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency coinciding International Day of Disabled Persons which is being observed on Friday Berhanu Belay, the executive director of Together -- a voluntary group -- said his organization is offering several empowerment programs like training them to gain skills in information technology and handicrafts to prepare them for the job market.

According to estimates Ethiopia, a rugged country in the Horn of Africa has a four million visually challenged population.

“We teach blind students within the premises of our organizations. Currently, 15 blind students are taking a short-term training in basic computer training,” said Berhanu.

He said a special software has been made available to allow visually challenged people to have easy access to the internet to enable them to check their emails without any assistance.

“We give a one-year training…and so far, we have given so much such training. And every time our students have been able to pass the exam and nobody has failed,” he said.

Berhanu said a software JAWS (Job Access With Speech) has been made available that allows blind and visually impaired users to read the screen either with a text-to-speech output or by a refreshable Braille display.

Sitting in front of her workstation, Bethlehem said the training in handling computers has enabled her to look for better career prospects.

“It is a very good training; it will help me greatly as I am transitioning to the world of work,” she said.

Berhanu said since the visually impaired students come from disadvantaged backgrounds, they lack access to books in Braille language and audio material.

Further, they remain dependent on the sighted people to write class tests and assignments, and then they most likely drop out of school early or fail to succeed in their studies.

According to Berhanu, the Ethiopian job market also hugely discriminates against the visually impaired as many organizations feel that they will need an assistant.

Berhanu said Ethiopia needs to revisit its laws to protect and ensure the rights of blind people. He said most of the burgeoning and old buildings in the capital city of Addis Ababa are still unfriendly to them as they lack the structures to provide ease of access and ease of passage.