Educational Empowerment of Girl Students with Visual Impairment

The Project

1. Goals of the project

The overall objective of the project is to create enabling environment for the enhancement of the participation of 25 girl students with visual impairment in regular school system.

• Objectives

The objectives of the project are to:

• Strengthen the enrollment of girl students with visual impairment in regular school system;
• Make available adaptive educational materials for visually impaired students;
• Improve the acceptance of girl students with visual impairment with in their respective peers and local communities through enabling them to maintain their personal hygiene and build self-confidence;
• Ease the mobility challenges of the beneficiaries between home and school and ultimately reduce the magnitude of dropouts; and
• Help the targeted students with visual impairment to get relief from a sense of guilt caused by their financial incapability to meet one of the requirements of schools through securing school uniform.

Methods of Implementing the project

• Assign the workers of the organization who have relevant qualification and experience to run the project;
• Use the service of the hostel of the organization established for girl students with visual and other impairments as to ensure the effect of the project;
• Procuring and supplying learning kit that contains adaptive educational materials and devices such as braille paper, slate stylus and white cane.
• Organizing training on reproductive health – related care, gender equality, self-protection and life skills
• Purchasing personal hygiene maintenance materials and distributing for the beneficiaries on regular/monthly basis.
• Facilitating the mobility of the beneficiaries between home and schools through subsidizing their transport cost.
• Assigning guardians and human readers to provide tutorial service for the beneficiaries;
• Preparing safe and accessible residence/hostel by the implementing partner for the beneficiaries in Alemgena town, 20 kilometers south west of the capital.
• Procuring and supplying school uniform.
• Conducting and monitoring and evaluation on the progress of the project activities
• Preparing and submitting quarterly activity and financial progress reports to the funding partner and concerned government line offices.

Context

This project is initiated to assist in the realization of needs that Help for Persons with Disabilities Organization (HPD-O) is trying to address.  Help for Persons with Disabilities Organization (HPD-O) is an endogenous nongovernmental organization established in 1994 by the partnership of persons with and without disabilities who had a common and shared vision on the issue of disability. The organization has been implementing various disability-focused support interventions in different project areas using Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) as a strategy to address the basic needs of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).

Regardless of the fact that disability is a fact of life, it is considered by the people as personal tragedy caused by sin, curse and the wrath of God. As a result, persons with disabilities constitute one of the highly neglected and marginalized groups in a society. Persons with visual impairment in Ethiopia face particular difficulties in accessing public services and securing acceptance with in local communities.

According to the United State-Based International Eye Foundation (IEF) estimate disclosed in 2012, in Ethiopia, there were well over 700,000 persons with visual impairment. However, the 2005/6 assessment conducted by the Federal Ministry of Health revealed that there were nearly three million people with visual impairment including persons with low vision.

The 2004 WHO, ILO and UNESCO Joint Position Paper on the equalization of opportunities of person with disabilities pinpointed that among a group of people with disabilities; women with disabilities are extremely neglected and overlooked in a society they live in. Some available assessments substantiated that girls with visual and other impairment are seriously exposed to sexual harassment and other related manifold challenges.

In accordance with the 2014/15 Annual Educational Statistics Report of the Federal Ministry of Education, a total of 84,568 students with disabilities were facilitated to attend their study from pre-primary to higher education grade levels. The report confirmed that the enrollment rate of girl students with disabilities was only 40.82%.

Evaluation – Follow-up

As per the policy of the organization, each project branch office is required to produce quarterly reports and submit to the head of the organization. These quarterly reports will be compiled and organized by the management of the secretariat to be presented to the quarterly meetings of the Managing Board. The activity and financial performance of the organization will be thoroughly evaluated and endorsed annually by the General Assembly of the Organization.

In addition, the management of the head office will carry out regular monitoring at branch office/project area level. HPD-O encourages such monitoring visits to be conducted by funding partners and government signatory line offices. The financial performance of the organization will be furthermore investigated by an authorized and chartered external audit firm. Hence, the overall implementation of this project will be monitored in line with this long term intervention values of the organization.

Evaluation will be an integral part of the project activity and an essential unit of good management practice. Evaluation will be carried out to track project progresses over time and improve management, administration, and accountability and as initial basis for assessing project impacts. Evaluation will be carried out in three phases:

• Mid-term
• Phase-out
• Post phase-out

Evaluations will be conducted to look into the relevance, performance, effectiveness and impact of the project in the context of its stated objectives. Moreover, post project phase-out evaluation will be carried out after project completion yearly for two consecutive years. The monitoring group will undertake the evaluation too. The need of the donor agency will be accommodated with regard to frequency of project evaluation.

The total estimated project cost amounts to EURO 8,082.76 or ETB 234,400.04. The project will be sponsored by three partners, the Sister Club, HPD-O and SIAAC.

Thank you to the following Clubs/Unions:

• SI Ludwigshafen am Rhein (Germany): € 2000