Braille AIDS directory launched
Zibonele Ntuli
13 August 2004
The University of South Africa has launched a Braille HIV and AIDS dictionary to assist visually impaired and blind students to access knowledge about the disease.
Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Education Minister Naledi Pandor attended the launch at Unisa in Pretoria this on Wednesday.
Tshabalala-Msimang said over the last ten years government was faced with huge challenges of building a health system that ensures access to quality healthcare service.
As one of the efforts to cater for visually impaired people, her department collaborated with Unisa to develop a brailed HIV and AIDS directory.
This directory provides information about support and care services available for infected people, where these services can be accessed and who to contact about the disease and other related issues.
"Government has always been passionate about the rights of people with disabilities and will continue to encourage
society to uphold and respect these rights.
"I hope this directory will allow blind and visually impaired individuals as well as organisations that provide support and care, to access services relating to HIV and Aids," she said.
The minister added that the private sector, NGOs and academic institutions have a role to play in restoring the dignity of the poor and vulnerable groups such as the disabled.
She said her department was unable to adequately communicate to people with disabilities but was working on it.
She said her department had also developed audio cassettes for the blind with key messages on the pandemic.
Speaking on behalf of the blind, an international advisor to Perkins School for the Blind, Aubrey Webson said disabled people were very vulnerable and exposed to HIV and AIDS because they were poor.
He said less than three percent of the South African population was blind, less than one percent of blind people were illiterate and
lived in the rural areas, implying that they had no access to health services.
He called on tertiary institutions to commission scientific research on the disabled in order to understand their plight.
"Although strides are made to improve the lives of the disabled especially the blind, scientific data is still limited, blind people do not have access to research material at universities," he said.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Pandor said her department was involved in distributing Braille equipment to 30 special schools throughout the country through the Telkom Foundation.
Source: BuaNews
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