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A woman with a vision for Africa’s blind

By Seneiya Kamotho

I am excited and anxious as I wait to meet Dr Elly Macha. Many questions race through my mind as I have never met such a high-flying visually impaired woman before. Minutes later, her secretary ushers me into her office and I am met by a charming woman, at ease with herself. I am disarmed by her welcoming smile.

Dr Macha with colleagues at an international conference in 1998. [pHOTO: courtesy]

household chores, so she agreed.

Macha liked her school from the start.

"I was so excited that I could go to school, and especially to meet other blind children like myself. I made friends easily and was top of my class from the start."

In Standard Four, Macha joined a mainstream school as the school for the blind only went up to Standard Three.

"It is here that I learnt that a blind student has to be social whether he or she wants to or not. I relied on friends to read my books to me and take me from place to place. I had homework and textbooks were not in Braille, so I had to make sure I was friendly enough for someone to want to help me."

Coping mechanism

This is one coping mechanism a blind person develops as a child and carries into adulthood.

Despite the hardships, Macha was one of only two children who made it to high school — the other being a sighted boy.

This time, Tabora Girls’ High School had four other blind girls. They all shared one Braille machine.

For her A-levels, Macha studied biology, geography and political science.

"Academics were becoming more and more challenging for me because, the further up one goes, the more extensive and advanced the reading required. I became even more dependent on those around me to read to me."

When the going gets tough, the tough get going, they say, and Macha continued her academic climb through to the University of Dar es Salaam, earning a degree in Education. The Ministry of Education immediately snatched her up as soon as she completed her degree. She was seconded to work with international nongovernmental organisations in Tanzania, sensitising the public on the realities and needs of the visually impaired.

Her computer ‘talks back’ using speech software. Photo: Mbugua Kibera

"This was a fulfilling time for me," she says excitedly. "I was able to go back into the villages in the rural areas, where people thought that being blind was taboo and a curse, and urge them to stop rejecting and hiding their blind children. I encouraged them to send the children to school."

Seeing Macha, a blind, educated and achieving young woman, made many parents change their minds.

"I was especially happy when I left a village and heard thereafter that parents had started sending their blind children to school. This for me was an answer to a lifelong prayer."

And that is how Macha began her crusade for the rights of blind child to education, love and support.

It is when she proceeded to the UK for post-graduate education that she came to appreciate what freedoms come with technological advancement.

"I read a book alone for the first time in my life! I devoured novels, magazines, comics, and textbooks voraciously. For once, I could read at my pace, time and space, without a reader because everything could be found in Braille or audio format."

The difference between the two worlds was stark. The visually impaired are well catered for in the West as compared to here, she says.

"Awareness of the needs of the visually impaired is high and facilities are provided. Lifts, doors and even supermarket shelves have Braille markings. I came to relish a level of independence I had never known. I accessed the newspapers daily on the Internet and surfed when I wanted like any sighted person because the computers had speech software. It was amazing!"

In addition, traffic lights tell you to ‘walk’ or ‘do not walk’, trains warn you to ‘mind the gap’ when doors open and shut, lifts announce which floor you have reached, and computers, phones and calculators talk back using speech software.

With this experience, Macha has plenty of ideas for policymakers.

"If the World Health Organisation estimates that 10 per cent of any population is disabled, then every national Budget should set aside 10 per cent of the total budget just to cater for special programmes for the disabled. They need to see our needs as crosscutting; for example, does the Ministry of Health consider producing information such as fliers, bulletins and other publications on Aids in Braille? Blind people are also sexual and social beings, so we also need to keep in touch with developments on Aids. The policymakers need to see our special needs as rights not a favour."

"Life is so tough for all of us, whether we are sighted or not. The key is to aim higher, to strive towards your dream until you get it, to always have a vision, even if you don’t have sight."

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