Ghana Blind Commends Barclays

The Ghana Blind Association has commended Barclays Bank of Ghana Limited on its $108 million assistance to it as part of Barclays Africa Community Support Programmes.

Mr. E. T. Plahar, President of the association said the amount, the biggest it had received so far in terms of assistance has gone a long way to ease among others, the problems of Braille Proficiency in the country.

Mr. Plahar made these comments during a review meeting of the association in Accra.

The Ghana Blind Association, Mr. Plahar noted has benefited from previous Barclays support, but said the $108 million assistance has helped to improve the Braille reading and writing of the visually impaired through the provision of books.

He said it had also helped the association to organise workshops to update reading and writing skills for Braille students as well as special education teachers for both the Wa and Akropong Special Schools.

The assistance from Barclays, Mr. Plahar further said has made it possible for the Association to organise and complete classes for the southern sector, where 31 students instead of 21 initially expected from eight second cycle schools and 23 from basic schools were involved.

The President said the classes helped to correct problems which faced blind students like correct spellings, punctuation and writing, saying it was against this background that examiners at the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) were enlightened on the current status of blind students in the course of discharging their duties like marking and monitoring of scripts for blind students.