Nearly 80,000 people are blind in Haiti, 1% of the population

By the definitions of WHO, the World Health Organization, 1% of the population of Haiti is classified as blind. For children who are visually impaired, progress through life can be especially challenging, sometimes, even more so than others with more physical impairments.

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This sentiment is that of Dr. Michael A. Pean from SHAA, the Haitian Society for Aid to the Blind.

One of the greatest handicaps meted out to a visually impaired child is the lack of access to education and the need for particular instruments to aid their learning. A child must be completely proficient and skilled at Braille, the writing technique that utilizes a blind person's sense of touch, before they can matriculate into the regular school system. This skill, if acquired late, can be the reason why a blind child enters school early, late, or just on time in life.

In Haiti, though some 80,000 of the population is classified as blind, the teaching of Braille, a complicated task by all accounts, is not very popular. There are only a few schools that teach it, and, oftentimes, the teachers are not completely proficient in all areas of the technique themselves. Doubling the responsibility of the teachers is the fact that it is such a specialized field. Parents do not have the ability, in most cases, to assist children with reading unless they too are visually impaired or have undertaken the extensive process of learning Braille.

The situation is proof of just another area in Haiti where resources just aren't sufficient.

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Read more: Disability, Handicap, Blind, Health

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