Visually-impaired appeal for free education

THE Zambia National Federation of the blind (ZANFOB) has called on Government to provide free education to all visually impaired people in Zambia up to tertiary level to completely eradicate street begging amongst the blind.

In an interview, ZANFOB president, Emmanuel Mulilo, said blindness comes with a lot of challenges and unforeseen barriers which cause limitations in opportunities and abilities to succeed.

Mr Mulilo said Government should consioder free education for the visually impaired as a matter of urgency because paying fees had been a very big challenge for the visually impaired who even struggle to pay for brail equipment.

Government, he said, should come up with a policy which will ensure that the blind were provided with free education from preschool to tertiary level.

Mr Mulilo also called on Government to ensure that the process of employing the visually impaired was an ongoing process.

“The other appeal we are making to the head of state is that we feel there is unfairness when it comes to recruitment where the visually impaired job seekers should be waiting for the massive recruitments.

“It is not easy for us to get organized and find ourselves and submit our applications to the relevant authorities at district or national level,” Mr Mulilo said.

Mr Mulilo has also appealed to government to increase transport allowances given for the visually impaired government employees because the ten percent transport allowance was not enough.