Ghana Districts: A repository of all Local Assemblies in Ghana

NEWS ARCHIVE 2006 - 09

(AKROPONG AKUAPEM) AKUAPEM NORTH:School for the blind need assistance.

On August 6 in 1945, the Akropong School for the Blind in the Eastern Province (Eastern Region) of the then Gold Coast (Ghana) was established.

Date Created : 11/17/2009 3:04:37 AM : Story Author : GhanaDistrict.Com

On August 6 in 1945, the Akropong School for the Blind in the Eastern Province (Eastern Region) of the then Gold Coast (Ghana) was established.

It was a significant day chosen to illuminate and alter the outlook and the social image of the blind in the country. According to records available at the school, it was first started on the premises of the Presbyterian teacher Education College (PTEC), formerly Presbyterian training college (PTC) at Akropong Akuapem.

It was the first special education facility for the blind in West Africa to be initiated by the Presbyterian missionaries.

On that faithful day, four pupils, one girl and three boys were enrolled with initial staff strength of four. It compromised two Ghanaians, Mr. and Mrs. Alex Godfred Sakyiama Amoako and two expatriates, Mrs. Bnezies Margaret and Lilian Moore.

The school is located about an hour’s drive from the nation’s capital – Accra, about 40 minutes drive from the regional capital – Koforidua and the purpose for which it was established was to train the blind children and integrate them into the mainstream society.

Currently, the school is serving dual purposes for about 400 visually impaired children and orphans, who are blind teenagers whose ages are between four and 28.

Most of them are in the school as orphans because from the day their parents brought them to the school they have never stepped there or visited them.

This situation has forced the school children to declare themselves as orphans and go round the streets to beg for alms.

In an interview with the headmistress of the school, Ms. Mahel Narh and the assistant headmaster, Mr. Joseph Atso Homadzi said the commitment and training of the blind in Ghana has been heralded as an important breakthrough because it was hoped that it would enable the children to be determined and do something for themselves.

The headmistress said, in the olden days many blind people who passed through the school had jobs and worked effectively as stenographers in the government office and other private organizations.

She said others were playing meaningful roles in the society and working as trained teachers and handicrafts, instructors in schools for sighted pupils.

“A few of them have qualified as university graduates and got important positions in the country as university lecturers, music and studio instructors and directors of organizations,” Ms. Narh said.

Currently it has become very difficult for the blind to have access to the job market no matter the best education and qualifications he or she has.”

“All these problems bedeviling the handicap in Ghana are from the mindset of employers concerning the physical challenged in the society and those who have prejudice against employing a blind person,” she added.

The headmistress said that all the unpleasant realities have had further negative effects for the blind children’s economic livelihood, the quality of life and social standing, to the extent of forcing them to go to the streets to beg for alms.

Unfortunately, M. Narh lamented, that certain developments have also hampered the progress and recognition of the school for the blind at Akropong.

She said that being blind means one must have special equipment and materials in every day life and education but it is not so in the school.

Mrs. Narh said that all the equipment needed for the training and for the blind to function as human beings in the school or in the society are not manufactured in Ghana.

She said the grants to the school and for the training of the children have not been forthcoming and on time to catch up with the rising prices of items.

The headmistress said that the school has staff strength of 100 comprising 56 teaching staff and 44 non teaching staff. She said according to the ethics of the profession the teachers or instructors are supposed to stay with the children in the school but they lack accommodation.

She said that the school has only seven bungalows for the 56 teachers and at the moment there are only three who live in the school.

Almost all the teachers are living outside the Akropong town and they travel long distances from Koforidua, Kpong Katamanso, Ashiaman, Accra and Somanya to the school everyday to teach.

The headmistress who nearly shed tears for the children and her colleague teachers in the school said “sometimes some of the teachers had to perch with some of the adult students in the school because they do not have money to board vehicle s to their homes or they had some roles to play in the school after classes or in the evening”.

She said, even though the school’s buildings look very clean and nicely painted the inside materials are all rotting.

She complained of leakages in both the sleeping places of both the house masters and the students and said some times some of the children had to live their rooms to sleep with their friends.

“Can you imaging two blind children or students sleeping on one student’s bed?, she asked. She said the students compete with the only borehole in the school with the community members because the water that runs through the Ghana Water Company’s pipe lines to the school come once or twice a week.

Ms. Narh appealed to the government and especially the GETFUND authorities to assist the school with a generator because there are frequent light-offs in the Akropong town and also it is not all the children who are totally blind. She said a lot of them can see partially and they help the total blind ones in most of the activities in the school.

Mr. Atso Homadzi, who is also blind and an old student of the school said since 1945 the Akropong School for the blind have trained about 1,146 graduates in the country.

He said many of them have received training in many professional fields and now worked together with their sighted counterparts at all levels of education and social lives and contributing their quota to the development of the national economy.

He said the school has produced 100 (one hundred) university graduates out of whom 14 (fourteen) are now masters degree holders, 102 post secondary teachers, one specialist and two diploma holding teachers, eight typists and stenographers, seven social workers, one principal administrative assistant and 498 instructors.

Mr. Homadzi said he has knowledge of the difficulties confronting the blind people in the country since he was enrolled at the school, and passed through the primary, JHS, SHS at Okuapeman, PTC and now a teacher in the school and pleaded with the government and all Ghanaians to assist the school.

“If I am to list all the things we need to make the school one of the best special school education centers in the country, it will take me one week to finish it but we are asking the authorities to visit us to see what we are doing here and what we need,” he said.

“We are indeed suffering to make it here and so e extend our special appeal also to the Eastern Regional Minister Mr. Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, who has been our special friend when he was a Deputy Minister for the region,” he added.

He appealed to all the religious organizations, philanthropist, Akwapim Rural Bank and Barclays bank and the rich in the society to come to their aid.

The assistant headmaster urged parents not to hide their children “because they have certain deformities and disabilities, but to send them to the Akropong school for the blind or the other special schools to be trained because the Almighty God has special assignment for all of them on earth.

"Please parents do not feel shy to declare or introduce your children with certain disabilities to your friends but send them to school and you will enjoy one day through them,” he appealed to parents.

TIMES/AMA