Writing by KHADIJAH ALIYU and Editing by MEMUDU BASIRAT
The Center for Information Technology and Development-CITAD with support from MacArthur Foundation has established a Digital Training Hub for People With Special Needs-PWDs in Kano State.
The digital training hub targets 300 PWDs in the next one year and include visually and hearing impaired, albinos, those with spinal cord injury and those clusters of special needs.
In his remarks, the country director, MacArthur foundation Nigeria, Dr Kole Ahmed Shettima explained that the world has turned into a global village hence the need to provide the required knowledge to make PWDs self reliant.
“With a population of 30-40 million PWDs in Nigeria, if they are left behind it means that those that will move the nation forward are not knowledgeable so we have to start from somewhere,” he noted.
The Executive director CITAD, Engineer Yunusa Zakari Ya’u pointed out that the pilot lab was established to cater for PWDs digital needs to promote inclusion.
A trainee with albinism using the screen magnifier to read
He stressed that the United Nations has declared that no one should be left behind digitally in addition to the migration of education online necessitated the need to do something.
“We looked around as most of our primary and secondary schools do not have facilities to train PWDs that is why we set up the lab to train them and enable them cascade the knowledge to younger generation,” Yunusa maintained.
The Executive director hinted that by establishing the pilot digital lab, they are inspiring other organizations to also do something to promote inclusion.
Some of the participants
The Senior Special Assistant on ICT to Kano governor, Alhaji Yusuf Ibrahim maintained that governor Abba Kabir Yusuf has approved the establishment of CBT ICT centers across the 44 local government areas.
“309 million naira will be spent to establish the pilot CBT center where PWDs will be given due consideration”, he stated.
Speaking on behalf of the trainees, Malam Ibrahim Abdulkarim commended CITAD for the initiative saying that it has made him realize that people with special needs are not left behind but rather brought into the limelight on ICT.
He appealed to MacArthur to provide CITAD with sophisticated equipment such as braille touch and braille embosser for the visually impaired and the Kano state government to include PWDs in any activity related to ICT.
“Am also appealing for the provision of laptops for the PWDs to enable us to practice what we have learnt and certificates at the end of the training to enable us for into the job market of information and communication technology”.
Radio Nigeria reports that each set of PWDs will undergo eight weeks of training while equipment at the digital lab includes computers, screen magnifiers, braille displays, braille keyboards, screen readers, and Perkins brailler, among others.
