Blind and Bright - A Read for Rose Special Education Program Success Story
By Annabel Mumba
Annabel Mumba is AEP’s Donor Relations Coordinator in Zambia. She is a Scholarship Fund recipient, high school graduate, and one of our latest Success Stories. Today, she shares the success of one of AEP’s Read for Rose program beneficiaries, Winnie. Thanks to Febby, our amazing special education teacher, Winnie is now attending a special boarding school for the blind and visually impaired.
Winniefrida is a 14-year-old girl with a vision impairment who has attended the Amos Youth Centre’s Read for Rose Special Education Program since it opened in early 2019. Winnie – as she likes to be called by her family and friends -- lost her sight when she was five years old. She has 5 siblings and her older brother and father are also blind. Winnie was not born blind. She suffers from glaucoma, an eye disease that affects the optic nerve and eventually leads to loss of sight and blindness. In Winnie’s case, this disease is hereditary as her father and brother have glaucoma, too. You can easily spot Winnie from afar and at first look you might think that she is not blind after all. She is very jovial and loves to converse with everyone. Her favourite colour is pink and she enjoys taking walks with her friends and family.
Just like many people with special needs in Zambia, Winnie has not had it easy. Getting an opportunity to learn basic literacy was a challenge for her as Zambia has very few teachers who are qualified to teach students with visual impairments. When Winnie was younger, her parents were determined to get her enrolled into school and found a local community school for students with special needs called Twatasha. The only challenge was the teachers at this school did not know braille (a tactile writing system for people with vision impairment.)
Winnie learned about Amos Youth Centre when she was in the 5th grade. It would be many years later that the Read for Rose Special Education Program opened in early 2019 and Winnie began attending the afterschool center on a regular basis. The opening of Read for Rose had many parents and students in the community excited. Febby Choombe, Read for Rose’s special education teacher, volunteered at the Twatasha school for a year before she entered the University of Zambia to pursue a degree in Special Education and was well acquainted with most of the students at Twatasha. Febby knew that learning was not easy for Winnie and saw that she had given up hope on acquiring an education. Winnie could not read, write or even spell her name. She had no idea what braille was or how to use it and began to think she was better off just staying at home like her visually impaired brother had done.
At Read for Rose, Febby was very patient with Winnie and began teaching her the basics to help restore hope and a love for school in her again. It was quite challenging. There were times Winnie would get emotional and end up breaking down in the middle of a lesson.
It has been a year and a month since Winnie began attending the Read for Rose program. Within that time, she has learned the entire braille alphabet and is able to count from one to a thousand and beyond in braille with no help or supervision. Last November, Winnie sat for her grade 7 examination, the standard exam that is taken by all students in order to proceed to junior secondary school. Winnie passed the exam! You can hear the pride in her voice when she is telling you about her test results.
The African Education Program is all about finding opportunities for their youth to continue their growth. When it was apparent that Winnie would excel in the proper setting, a search was started to place her in a special education school for her 8th grade term. Winnie is now a student at St. Muluba School, a boarding school that is one of the best schools for the visually impaired in Zambia. It is located in southern province, the southern part of Zambia, and an eight-hour drive from Kafue.
“Febby shared, ‘It is very exciting to look at how much change she has shown within this time. Her determination is back and stronger than before and, as her teacher, I feel motivated to work harder to see more students succeed.’”
When we recently asked Winnie what she aspired to be, she shared, “I want to become a teacher for the blind.” Winnie will continue to be part of the Read for Rose Special Education Program when her school closes for the holidays. Since the time that she reported to school, Febby, and her assistance teacher, Annie, have been making weekly calls to the school to check up on how well she is adapting to the new environment. We are happy to report she is doing very well.
It is amazing when our students achieve success, that is our purpose for students like Winniefrida -- to learn and become independent.