Training Program
We understand that for people with visual Impairment to actually be proactive and productive members of society we must work on providing special training for their surrounding communities. We have classified three main target groups for our training programs: parents, school teachers, and health professionals. We provide specific know-how and skills for each target group in dealing with people with visual Impairment.These training programs are important because of the lack of knowledge about the special needs of people with visual impairment and how they differ from other disabilities.
Future Goals
Accredited Post-Graduate Visual Impairment program
One of the main problems we have in Egypt is the lack of education programs that trains people to become specialists in the field of visual impairment. There are a few programs in Egypt which deal with all disabilities rather than being specialized in visual impairment. We aim to establish an accredited post-graduate program in visual impairment, which provides the proper knowledge and training to work with Visual impairment.
Students in this program should:
• Learn how to assess and evaluate learners with visual impairment and decide their learning capabilities and needs.
• Be trained on how to teach orientation & mobility, communication skills, social skills, self-help for people with visual impairment.
• Know all different types of technologies used by people with VI.
Furthermore, In Egypt, there are no health professionals specialized in low vision who could assess and characterize the needs of people who have low vision. Internationally, once a person has been diagnosed as having low vision by a primary eye care provider, he or she should be referred for a clinical low vision evaluation, as part of the overall multidisciplinary rehabilitation services, to review what, if any, optical and non-optical devices would be beneficial. The role of the clinical low vision specialist is to maximize a person’s functional vision capabilities.
In-Classes, Courses will be established with collaboration between BASEERA, International Universities, and at least three universities in Egypt. Where the curriculum will be provided from an international university, taught at the university in Egypt, and the practical training to be conducted at BASEERA. The accreditation should be provided by both the International and Egyptian Universities.
●Health professionals in this program should be trained on conducting a personalized assessment of the living and social skills of people with visual impairment and deciding their needs and capabilities.
● Learn the Medical, Educational, and Rehabilitative implications of visual impairment.
● Learn about the psychological needs of people with visual impairments (while specialized psychiatrists work in providing this type of support educators must be able to determine when professional assistance is needed). Our initial idea for implementing this program is through: Online Courses - This will be provided through online interactive courses and lectures from a credited international university which will provide the accreditation and the practical training will be conducted at BASEERA.
Low Vision Center
● One of our main
goals at BASEERA is creating a low vision center in Egypt through covering
scholarships for health professionals to get proper training on low vision in
international universities which provide this type of education and come back
to establish with BASEERA the low vision center in Egypt. In order to achieve
this we need to build partnerships with donors who are willing to fund such a
vital project in the development of the lives of people with visual impairment
in Egypt.
● A Clinical low vision specialist should be specialized in low vision testing, diagnosis, and treatment and are trained to conduct low vision eye examinations and prescribe special low vision devices. The Low Vision Specialist uses special charts and materials for the assessment of distance and near visual acuity that are not routinely used in general eye examinations. It goes beyond the prescription of standard spectacles to provide optical, non-optical, and/or non-visual devices to help individuals meet their specific visual needs for distance, intermediate, and near activities. It includes the gathering of information about the individual’s functional use of vision by a clinical low vision specialist, even when optical devices may not be beneficial, to provide techniques for maximizing the functional use of vision.
Our goal is to reassure parents who are blessed with a child with visual Impairment by introducing them to a support group that helps them address the needs of their child, utilize their child's abilities and help her/him reach her/his greatest potential and be a socially and emotionally stable individual.
The problem we face with many parents is that they are often too protective of their children. They try to compensate their child's visual disability by being at their disposal and over assisting them their daily activities, which greatly hinders the development of children with visual impairment and makes them completely dependent. On the other hand, many parents do not realize the capabilities of their visually impaired child and believe that the best they can do for them is satisfying their basic needs for food, shelter, and safety. Moreover, because of the high level of ignorance in Egypt regarding disabilities, many parents are ashamed of telling others that their child has a visual impairment. In many cases parents do not even tell the child her/himself that s/he has a problem. We work on changing this mentality through a comprehensive approach that deals with:
- Providing basic knowledge on what to do when you find out your child has a visual impairment (the medical, social, educational support you should seek out).
- Building a network of parents of children with visual impairment to provide support to one another.
- Providing knowledge on the abilities of VIPs, and success stories that help the parents have a clear vision of the various opportunities their children have.
- Highlighting the major bad habits that parents should avoid mainly over helping their child in their daily activities and treating him as incapable.
- Training parents on how to assist in their child's early development, ideally once they discover their child is VI. The care -giver is a direct partner in the early intervention stage when the child learns the orientation & mobility skills, self-help, and social skills.
- Training parents on how to provide psychological support to their VI child and when to tell them about their disability and comfort them when needed.
- Providing essential medical knowledge on VIPs and how to address them, when and how to seek help.
- Training parents on how to assist their children's education process, through modified methods using other senses.
- Training parents on how to demand their children's rights and how to negotiate themselves for these rights instead of depending on us (often times this is needed especially with schools, healthcare, transportation, among other services).
In order to achieve our goal of inclusive education, teachers at regular schools are one of our main target groups. While inclusive education today is required by law, we realize that often school teachers resist welcoming children with visual impairment in their classrooms due to their lack of knowledge on how to assist these children rather than being discriminatory against them. Thus, we have created a special program for teachers which focuses on:
- The learning abilities of the VI children, it is important to stress that VI children are capable of learning but need different methods in learning.
- Engaging a VI child in the classroom, for example, through utilizing their sense of hearing, touch, and smell.
- Modifying teaching tools and methods.
- Keeping the children with VI aware of what is happening in the classroom.
- The importance of not giving them special attention than their peers, which hinders their sense of independency.
- Creating a welcoming environment for a child with VI among his peers.
- Problem solving, what to do in case other children tease/bully the child with VI.
- The importance of not isolating her/him but to support her/him in making friends.
One of the main problems we face in Egypt is that prime health-care does not include eye examination, a large percentage of a child's sight could be saved if s/he is tested at an early stage and surgical intervention is conducted.
Our target groups in our training programs are public health units, school's health units, public health insurance offices. The training covers:
- The importance of conducting eye examinations and how to conduct it.
- Performing a proper assessment of a child's vision and reporting it.
- Providing them with manuals to assist people with low vision in seeking the right type of support.
- What to tell a person who is identified as low vision or blind.
- Providing comfort to a low vision or blind child and her/his parents.
