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My White Cane Gives Me a Sense of Life

I was pursuing a diploma course in Procurement and Logistics management at an Institution in Gulu, Uganda in 2014. Under the care of a single mother, my dream was to study hard, get a job, and relieve her of part of the financial burden she faces daily.

However in 2014, I started losing hope, when an eye infection blurred my vision. While walking around during day, I could feel like I was going to fall in a pit. At night, I could see an illuminated horizon, but beside me, was darkness.

The numerous visits to the eye clinic at the government hospital did not improve my condition. I became disheartened, when each of the three specialists I consulted gave a different diagnosis.

All the tablets and eye drops prescribed did not help. By the end of 2015, I completely lost my sight, and was plunged into total darkness.

It took time for my family members to believe that I had lost my sight. At table, I would spill food when serving. My only sister thought I was becoming a mean brother, who wanted to bother her with more chores. When it was time for going to the garden and I said I could not do it, my mother assumed that I

Gulu Annual Tech Camp

Please read the article by Lindsay Craig about the class he taught in Gulu at the annual Oysters & Pearls Technology Camp.

I’m starting a robotics toy company called QuestBotics (which is another story), but in my copious free time every year I go to Uganda, Africa to teach a Technology camp with Oysters & Pearls – Uganda. It’s a two-week event and kids in northern Uganda flock to a school called Gulu High where they get to play with sensors, tiny robot brains (microchips), Legos, video games, motors and virtual reality.

With over 120 students and 50 staff members at the camp in Uganda, we have our hands full just getting the power turned on, but that didn’t stop us – this year, we found the time to add four new subjects for the students–shortwave radio, audio, art and solar energy.

Pushing the boundaries in Uganda Tech Education
We’re always pushing the boundaries of what we can teach at the Gulu Annual Tech Camp. The second year of its existence we were teaching printed circuit board design as a part of the prototyping course. Students had clamored in the past for the opportunity to work with Bluetooth and other wireless technology. So, we bought a bunch of low-cost short-wave

2016 Robotics and Animation Training

2016 Robotics and Animation Training

The curriculum for 2016 includes pcDuino, Raspberry Pi, Android Apps, and Animation using several open source software programs. We’ll be using laptops, Samsung Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 smartphones as well.

The program is open to beginners and advanced users. Several vendors have supported the program through donations and discounts. The teachers include Professor Carl Twarog and one of his students from East Carolina University, Linz Craig and 18 experienced programmers and teachers from within Uganda.

The program runs from Sunday Jan 10 until Saturday Jan 23.

Read the post from Lindsay Craig. You will read about half-way down in this article about his involvement with Oysters and Pearls! Thank, Linz!

Holiday Training – January 2015

I arrived in Gulu on a Saturday afternoon, not sure what to expect from the next two weeks. As a volunteer with the Oysters & Pearls holiday training program, I knew about the class materials and basic program setup. As I quickly learned however, there was much more to the program than just the teaching.

Joining Sandra and the instructors, I spent the weekend assisting with logistics — the little details that I had never considered, but had to be completed. Where were all the plates for the dining hall? Could we borrow mattresses for students that didn’t bring their own? Why was the electricity off in the classrooms? These and a hundred other small-but-crucial tasks had to be settled, even as students started arriving on Sunday afternoon.

Classes began immediately on Monday, and continued through the week. Sighted students were sorted into one of three classes — Engineering for the Future, Introduction to Robotics, or Advanced Robotics. As the classes delved into new materials and lessons, I watched the projects grow increasingly complex. Since I constantly moved from room to room, I saw the classes develop in snapshots. What started on day one as a collection of wires and boards became a functioning light display, then a

What a Cool Shade

“What a cool shade I have got from she providing proper canopy from the blazing sun!”

The eloquence of Komakech Denis’ passage captures the heart of our mission whether it is to protect from destructive elements or cultivate and build on the helping and nurturing ones. Denis finished his A-level in December 2013 and we are awaiting confirmation that he will be granted a full scholarship to Makere University to start the journey to becoming a lawyer in August 2014.


Komakech Denis first lessons on the computer with teacher Marilyn Bland

Having access to a computer can be a real game-changer to a blind or visually-impaired person on so many levels. Being able to type and print one’s schoolwork for submission to a sighted teacher, accessing the internet, “listening” to a vast amount of content whether it is scanned books or downloaded material and even the chance to write an email that is received across the globe can have a big impact.

Denis is 20 years old; he was a peer computer teacher during Holiday trainings for 2 ½ years and the students have always praised his technique. He has started a

Fine Arts Training April 2014

I’d like to share some photos I just received of the Fine Arts Training. This session was taught by Brianna Schuyler and Odoch Daniel to the blind students. Brianna related that some of the students didn’t know what to do when they began, but they eventually started playing with the wiki sticks and made some great stuff. I agree!
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Squeeze Them Like a Sponge: Engineering at Gulu Primary

For one week in November, I had the amazing opportunity and support of Sandra and Oysters and Pearls to continue the work of Erin Fitzgerald and Kate Sokol, who introduced the Engineering is Elementary (EiE) curriculum to Gulu Primary School in the summer, a school which is inclusive of students who are visually impaired. The curriculum has students go through a five-step process called the engineering design process, and collaborate to engineer a technology to solve a specific problem. Erin and Kate taught two of the EiE units, as the teachers observed and began to co-teach. After the two weeks, with Sandra’s help, contact with the teachers and administration was kept up. The opportunity arose to go back in November, to do more professional development with teachers, introduce another unit, and observe them teach in order to provide support and feedback. Unfortunately, Teacher Kate was unable to attend, which made the teachers and students very sad. I consider myself extremely lucky I was able to step into Teacher Kate’s role.

Engineering at Gulu PrimaryErin and I excitedly geared up for our trip. Our goal was to bring minimal amounts of material, and plan with the teachers how to locally source as many materials

Teaching Math to the Visually-Impaired in Uganda

When I came to Gulu High School last January, my first task as a Peace Corps volunteer was to identify areas of need in the school. After a number of conversations with different administrators and teachers, it was obvious that while there had been valuable efforts to make accommodations for the students with visual impairments, there were still many ways that these students were not on an equal playing field with the sighted students. There was a Braille embosser (to "print" Braille documents), a computer lab and a very dedicated Head of the Special Needs Department (Odoch Daniel).

However, Daniel explained to me that there was no math teacher for the visually impaired students. Instead, they were placed into the class for sighted students where the lectures were predominantly visual, and it was effectively impossible for a visually impaired student to follow. It would have been possible to incorporate visually impaired students in a lecture to a class of perhaps 20 or 30 students, but when you have 90 students in a class (as is common across Uganda) it is incredibly difficult to accommodate students with special needs in your lessons.

And so the students focused on their other classes and routinely failed their national

Canes for the Vision-Impaired

Dear Sandra,
I have given four white canes out yesterday during my training with a group of persons with disabilities at St. Jude Consolation Home. It was a big group consisting of different types of disabilities. Among the group there was Lucy, Lakwonyero, Santos and others. I have called this meeting to organize the disabled persons within the Municipality into groups of four and have them elect their leaders in order for them to seek assistance from non-governmental organizations and other charitable organizations. It worked well and the elected leaders will meet on the 13th Sept. to discuss a way forward and report back to members on 11th Oct.

   Man having just received his white cane. There were new blind persons that attended the meeting and they requested me to obtain for them the white canes. I have given some to a few because I only have very small canes (for young children) only. If you have the possibility of getting more white canes it would help me addressing their needs.

Samuel

The letter above was written by the director of the St. Jude’s Consolation Home. Samuel was the one who introduced us to the two schools in Gulu that are inclusive of blind

We would be very grateful to you for your donation to Oysters & Pearls to support our ongoing educational programs for the students in Gulu, Uganda
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