Luxembourg supports school for visually impaired children in Madagascar
Fondation CBM Luxembourg, in partnership with CDV Luxembourg, has undergone an ambitious project to send auxiliary aids for visually impaired and blind students of the EPHATA school of the ECAR Center in Madagascar.
Working together in partnership, Fondation CBM Luxembourg and CDV Luxembourg (Centre pour le développement de compétences relatives à la vue) have completed a successful installation of auxiliary aids for visually impaired students at a school in Madagascar in under 6 months.
The project began in March 2022: CDV Luxembourg had upgraded a series of auxiliary aid equipment for its students and, subsequently, had a lot of equipment that was to be left obsolete since it was not convenient for the integrative approach. This equipment, though not the latest generation, was still in perfect working order and had many years of use remaining. The Director of CDV Luxembourg, Frank Groben, wanted to initiate a way for this equipment to be put to use in another country where the newest equipment might not be available.
Working together with President of CBM Luxembourg, Diane Wolter, a school in Madagascar was identified. Madagascar is one of the countries in CBM Luxembourg’s core focus, where 3% of the population live with a visual impairment, and a little less than 1% are children with congenital cataracts, but there are only 31 eye health centres in the whole of Madagascar for a population of 27 million.
The school identified for these aids was the EPHATA school of the ECAR Center, run by sister Chantal Ruppert. The school has 53 students, all with some visual impairment or blindness. Founded in 2002 by the Congregation of the Sisters of Mary Immaculate, the mission of the school is to cover specialised support and educational needs of the visually impaired students.
The school aims to prepare students to reach the maximum degree of professional and social autonomy taking into account their impairment. This mission and values of EPHATA school, of supporting those with visual impairment, align perfectly with those of CBM and CDV, and hence an agreement was made to send the auxiliary aids to the EPHATA school.
From March to June 2022, the arrangements were made, including organisation of the delivery and shipping of the equipment.
Diane personally ensured the shipment was adequate, arranged the crossing, CBM Luxembourg paying all shipping fees.
Meanwhile, the team at CDV carefully packed the equipment, which covered 275 aids in 173 boxes weighing 2700kgs.
The shipment safely arrived at the EPHATA school in August 2022.
In late October 2022, two volunteers from the CDV, sponsored by CBM Luxembourg, visited the school for 10 days. Their mission to check and install all of the equipment that had been shipped.
During the visit, the volunteers from the CDV instructed and gave detailed guidance to EPHATA school specialists regarding the use of equipment. They spent time with staff and children to see the equipment in use, making sure the full benefit could be realised by the school.
Using the equipment, they identified some important findings; for example some children had been using braille, but actually found they could read in black and white by using the aids!
When the team left, the equipment had already begun being used on a daily basis at the EPHATA school, with many students benefiting from the auxiliary aids.
During the trip, some children were identified by the volunteers from CDV as having treatable problems, such as cataracts. With a simple operation, the children with cataracts could see clearly again, and potentially wouldn’t need to attend a specialist school. Other children identified as with river-blindness could have been treated with antibiotics, if available at the moment of the infection. CBM is now looking for ways to get the treatment needed to these children.
This project has been a huge success for both CDV and CBM, as well as the school, putting to use equipment that would otherwise have been obsolete. And both CDV and CBM hope to be able to mimic this initiative again in the future.