Radio Miraya
2650: Resilience Organization in partnership with UNFPA transcribe books into braille at Rajaf Centre
The resilience organization working with the United Nations Population Fund has brought information much closer to people living with disabilities at the Rajaf Education Center. Well, this has been done through the transcribing of textbooks into brails for teachers to teach students without any more challenges. And this is quite a major move for people with visual impairments. And to talk about this effort we have in the studio with us chief executive officer of the resilience organization Kevin Abalo with us and Kevin, good morning and thank you so much for making our time to speak to us today. Good morning and thank you so much for having me. Right. Now just help us understand the project that you are currently undertaking on the provision of braille books at the Rajaf Education Center. UNFPA supported the Rajaf Educational Center through Resilient Organization with the braille machine. This is to actually facilitate learning for students with virtual, I mean virtual impairments and the teachers as most of them are blind so they have been having difficulties in teaching because they only had the textbooks that every school used and the textbooks were not really designed in a way that the virtually impaired or the blind student and teachers can use so with support from the UNFPA Resilient Organization managed to transcribe these textbooks into the braille for easy use and easy learning. That's right and I must say that it has been a long time coming because imagine someone with visual impairment trying to use something that requires eyesight. I can just imagine how challenging that was. It was too much challenging to the extent that if a teacher wants to teach, a teacher has to bring in a friend to first read for him what is in the textbook and then he will transcribe it which takes really so much time in his understanding language as virtually in parrot person and then after that they will move on to a teaching which had really been a great challenge and this was the first challenge they really reached out to us as a resilient organization to help them address because many people have promised to address it but it never happened so we managed with the support from the UNFPA. And that's just one of the challenges that people living in diabetes are undergoing most especially in their places of work as your organization on a larger scale, on a much larger scale rather how do you address the challenges that face such kind of people? What we do as a resilient organization we reach out to vulnerable, most vulnerable people because there had been this kind of behavior or leaving some people behind you know an inclusivity so we have decided to do it in a very different way as a resilient organization by reaching out to vulnerable people and hearing from them what are the challenges they face and what are the most major challenges that they had really been going through and after they have shared with us and then we take it forward by reaching out to some few daughters and make sure we address it to really leave no one behind. Right and the other thing one of the other issues that you focus on as an organization is reproductive health rights including disseminating information to young people how do you ensure that this works out and there's all inclusivity and reaches out to as many people? I mean resilient organization conducted training of teachers and facilitators on comprehensive sexuality education and also sexual reproductive health messages where I mean we transcribed them into braille and recorded some of these sexual productive health messages into digital radio and also for the virtually impaired we recorded some messages for them to easily listen in state of reading and also we make sure we transcript some of these messages into the braille so that the student the young people will be able to read for themselves and also we had also been working with hearing impaired from Bullock B primary school where young people who were having problems with the years I mean in other way we call them the deaf but the best language to use is hearing impaired we had also been helping them by making sure we produce some sexual productive health messages into a video form where it will play in a video while also having some words you know whatever that person is saying will be you know running through words and also they'll be watching you know when you watch a video you understand by yourself what the video really mean and also most of these young people in Bullock B with hearing impaired they can read so we make sure we really make them understand in their own ways and also we have asked one of I mean the first of its kind one of the largest adults and girls I mean adults and girls conference and comprehensive sexuality conference in the last I mean I mean like Carl let me say a year ago where we brought really large number of young girls and we just we just made the discussion really so I mean exciting inclusive we were just like not having a conference but it was more of a conversation on I mean comprehensive sexuality education and sexual reproductive health rights where we brought in some key people from UNESCO we brought in P key people from UNFPA and we also brought in some key people from the state I mean Ministry of Health and National Ministry of Health where there were a path to make these young people really understand the importance and what comprehensive sexuality really means we also really did the same and that was just last year we conducted a training on sexual productive health and sexual gender based violence and HIV itself just a component of this three where we brought in community leaders there were traditional leaders religious leaders from both sides we brought in youth leaders we brought in the women leaders and also some teachers were part of this training just to make it easy for the whole nation to understand that sexual reproductive health is once right and everybody have a right to make a decision over his or her I mean her rights I mean her health and also the teachers were able to help us disseminate the same messages into the schools and the community leaders were also able to help us you know disseminate the same messages into their community during community events and the churches were able the pastors the priests were able also to help us disseminate the messages into the churches as well and all this happened with support from UNFPA so now we are really rooted as a resilient organization with the help of these gatekeepers. Well thank you so much Habalo for the time and as we conclude how else can other organizations that do community work just like you be able to be more inclusive so that no one is left behind just like you emphasize. I basically think that it is important when you know addressing a community issue you have to be very inclusive especially by living no one behind when you're going for your assessment don't focus only with the daily people that today I mean like the everyday people you have to make sure in the assessment you're doing in the problem finding you make sure everybody giving their voices including people living with disability because they also deserve to deserve the same right as us and please in our work I request all of us to be inclusive let's leave nobody behind let's include people living with disability for a better source then and your final words and the importance of the partnership that you've been focusing on under served communities. You know partnership is one of the major thing if you are a civil society or I mean I NGO or UN agencies or even an association you have to really partner especially with the community that you work with and also the community leaders themselves they help your work really flow very very well and it will help you sustain whatever activities that you're doing like for example what resilient organization had done with the gatekeepers and till now our activities are ongoing even without money you know to make it easy for an organization or other partners really to move on let's try to bring in let's try to work hand in hand with the gatekeeper so that whatever we're doing should not hand after the funding it should continue because we are not just doing it for the money that maybe is there let's also continue doing it without money all right so the partnership will help you work to flow and it will help you sustain the work especially with the community. That's right and Kevin before I forget Mookie and Bala will be just to bring those other the population to speed on some of the activities we've had. Exactly. I should grant you Zilin an academic year fee I should hold a bit of resilient organization based on being UNFPA and in the start of the year I mean my job educational center for the blind and the mother's a bit of a lot I'll Missouri I'll guide Phil Bullock and also in the start [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language] [speaking in foreign language]