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January 06, 2010
Training Report : November 9, 2009: Regional Training (Day 2) - WITH in Hamamatsu
In the morning nine participants visited WITH, small-scale community workshop for persons with visual impairments run by Rokusei Welfare Corporation. Not only JICA participants but three students from school for the blind and a student from regular junior high school also visited WITH as a part of their integrated study programs. To begin with, JICA participants, members of WITH, and students introduced themselves individually and then members welcomed visitors with songs.
After that chairperson explained why he established WITH in Hamamatsu city and what kinds of difficulties persons with visual impairments are facing in Japan.
Most of children with visual impairment spend their daily lives at the blind schools and they seldom have opportunities to communicate with other persons outside the schools. It discourages and prevents them from participating in the society.
Therefore WITH encourages and empowers them to go out and work together with other people without disabilities.
At lunch time Sri Lankan curry was prepared and as you could imagine easily a participant from Sri Lanka cried for that.
In the afternoon chairperson showed them how to make a white cane and how to provide the mobility training, then he explained the importance of using the white canes.
Participants learned so many things in a day, and they were all fully satisfied.
http://www.jicafriends.jp/leaders/gi2009/training/l1109.html
Posted by jicafriends at January 6, 2010 05:29 PM