In 2018, Claudine Uwitije signed up for massage therapy training by an organisation called Seeing Hands Rwanda, which seeks to address social and economic issues like unemployment among visually impaired people.

Now, Uwitije, a massage therapist and trainer, has found a source of regular income, enabling her to lead a more independent life.

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"Living in Kigali would have been very hard for me if I didn’t have this job as a massage therapist,” she said.

"There’s still the perception that people with disabilities cannot live without help. But I do most of the activities myself, including commuting to work.

"Seeing Hands has given us opportunities which we could never have found elsewhere, and our self-esteem got a boost,” said Uwitije. "Certainly, more people with disabilities need information and networks to be able to live the lives they deserve.”

Beth Gatonye, an aesthetician and massage therapist, founded Seeing Hands in 2017 after noticing a gap in the wellness industry.

"There were no visually impaired people providing massage in Rwanda. It was not by accident. Visually impaired, like other people with disabilities, have fewer chances of getting employed in any career than other people. And in most cases, people cannot find jobs simply because of their physical disability.”

‘We do it much better’

At least 60 people, mostly women and girls, have benefited from the massage and ICT training Gatonye offers for free.

"You have people who finish university and go back home because they can’t find jobs, and are forgotten,” she said.

That might have been the case of Clarisse Nyirabera, a graduate in clinical psychology, but then she joined Seeing Hands.

"Foreigners make the majority of our customers because Rwandans have not fully changed their stereotypes,” Nyirabera said.

"In fact, the customers testify to our good services and skills in massage therapy. It is true that a person with a disability tends to do much better than one without. These hands see for us,” said Nyirabera, who’s now able to provide for her young daughter.

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It is for people like Uwitije and Nyirabera that Gatonye founded Seeing Hands to address the problem in the massage industry. At the centre they get free massage therapy training before they start getting paid.

"We help them transition from training to employment,” Gatonye said. "If we cannot secure jobs for them, we work with them from here at Seeing Hands.”

Changing the stereotypes

But it was not an easy task, Gatonye said. She dealt with the skills challenge, and when her students were able to provide massages, she had to deal with the perceptions of the clients.

Some people had negative impressions of a visually impaired person giving them a massage. Some clients were pissed off after finding out that their masseuse was blind. Some were uncomfortable.

But with time, more and more Rwandans are finding it normal to get a massage from a visually impaired person, Gatonye observed.

"After all, it’s the hands that work, and not the eyes,” she said. "The perception is changing gradually. Now we have had several visually impaired people provide massage services in hotels.”

She said Seeing Hands provides services at one of the embassies in Kigali, as well as to professional athletes and universities.

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Now, Gatonye’s organisation wants to get more clients. "We are increasingly getting more visually impaired people interested in massage therapy training because there’s employment,” she said.

"When you find a person with a disability, give them a chance to prove themselves. Do not judge them by their disability. They went to school and performed well like anybody else. Let’s look beyond disability.”

The safe haven

Gatonye’s centre has been the haven for some of the disadvantaged graduates.

The centre’s manager is a journalism graduate. Another graduate, who couldn’t find a journalism spot, recently landed a job as a massage therapist in the Eastern Province after months at the centre.

Society needs to change its stereotypes about people with disabilities, observed Nyirabera.

That will change the fate of most university graduates who cannot find jobs because employers have a biased opinion about them.