Never do you hear a visually impaired, or blind employee in Uganda talking about availability of friendly work tools. For teachers, the problem is graver; because their poor or lack of sight hinders them from using the computer to research, and frequently update notes to remain relevant to students.

Many choose the unreliable option of asking colleagues to help them make notes, mark students’ work, and assess them. That kind of help does not come easy; and is highly unpredictable! This desperate, and heartrending situation has been prevailing for the blind and visually impaired workforce in the country since time immemorial. As such, many who become blind or visually impaired suddenly, find themselves leaving their job, involuntarily.

But Oysters & Pearls-Uganda has broken this curse, especially for many blind and visually impaired teachers in northern Uganda. The organization has trained all the blind and visually impaired teachers at Gulu High School, the only secondary school in the north that is blind inclusive. The teachers now have skills in the computer software; Job Access with Speech, JAWS, which is designed for the blind and visually impaired.

To simplify their work, each of the teachers has been assigned a lap top computer, with access to the internet. The laptops have text books in soft copy, for their research.

I visited the blind annex at Gulu High School recently, and interacted with Mr. Ali Muzamil, a blind teacher of History and Entrepreneurship at the school. Muzamil makes a sigh of relief, as he tells me how Oysters & Pearls-Uganda has simplified his work. In the past, Mr. Ali relied on colleagues to make and update his notes, but he now does it on his own using the internet.

Muzamil no longer struggles carrying many books to his workplace because they are stored on the computer.

Jasper Ogwang is another blind person who has been trained by Oysters & Pearls- Uganda, among more than ten other peer trainers, who were drawn from different parts of the country.

He gives computer lessons to the blind and visually impaired students of Gulu High School and Gulu Primary School.

Japser and his colleagues have the privilege of a spacious room with wireless internet at the Visual Impairment (VI) office at Oysters & Pearls in Gulu.

As you enter their office each time, “open the door and introduce yourself, or say something”, appears to be the unwritten rule. At the office, the teachers are always absorbed on their laptops, preparing for their next lesson. It is either sounds coming from their lap top or head phones over their heads; a sign that they are busy. The morning hours are always for researching and making notes for lessons, which normally begin in the afternoon.

Oysters & Pearls is the only organization in Uganda which offers JAWS training free of charge. This comes as a blessing to many blind and visually impaired persons, who are mostly financially incapacitated; and yet there are thousands in this category. Figures from the Health Management System indicate that an estimated 300,000 to 350,000 people in Uganda are blind, and more than 1.2 million are visually impaired. The number goes up by 34,000 annually, due to eye infection or cataracts.

Life is undeniably hard for the blind and visually impaired teachers in Uganda. But Oysters & Pearls- Uganda believes that introducing them to technology, and breaking the myth that technology is out of their reach, and any other blind or visually impaired person for that matter, diminishes the bleak uncertainty of their tomorrow.