Vuguziga, a visually impaired ICT teacher who dreams to change lives of the blind

Innocent Vuguziga’s office at the school for handicapped children, HVP Gatagara Rwamagana, is dotted with computers (laptops), braille machine and other ICT tools. A visitor to the school would hardly guess that it is an office for a person with visual impairment.The secondary school ICT teacher amazingly operates different computers despite his visual impairment. With curiosity, you can’t help but ask how he does it.“The worst thing about disability is that people see it before they see you,” the first response he gives this reporter before explaining other details about his life and disability.Apart from teaching at school, Vuguziga moonlights in offering ICT training to visually impaired persons. Education journeyVuguziga, 32, was eight when he lost his sight due to infections. As a form one pupil, he thought his future was ruined. But to the contrary, his parents saw otherwise. “It was in February 1992 when I started suffering eye infection. Within five months, a doctor at Kabgayi Hospital had confirmed that my eyes were completely damaged and recommended that I move to schools that offered special needs education for children with disabilities,” he recalls. “I am among the visually impaired people who were privileged at that time; my fortune came from our neighbour, who was visually impaired, too, but had completed his studies at HVP Gatagara. My parents learned from him and did not see me as a burden. They immediately took me to continue my primary studies at HVP Gatagara in Nyanza,” he said. In 1998, Vuguziga excelled in Primary Leaving Examinations and enrolled at Groupe Scolaire Gahini for secondary education. Ten years later, he enrolled for university education at former Kigali Institute of Education (KIE) – now University of Rwanda’s College of Education – where he graduated in Business and Education. He later went to Kenya for a three-month training in adaptive technology for people with visual loss. ICT inspirations Information, communication and technology was part of his hobbies before and after losing vision. At the age of between seven and eight in primary school, Vuguziga was studying in a school that was fully equipped with electronic devices. He said at school, he used to spend part of his daily time exploring every device he came across. “During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, I was 10. I always thank the Lord for keeping me alive in the post-Genocide period because I could have easily picked abandoned grenades or any other explosive device as that was a very trying moment for Rwandans,” Vuguziga said. “I had much curiosity to know everything around me; I used to open containers, unlocking all kinds of locks, many times I used to bring home different kinds of electronic devices like cameras, bullets, radios, among others. I simply wanted to explore till I got to the last thing,” he said. Vuguziga recalls that when they were in high school, radios were not allowed at school but he was the only student who owned one. “At the age of 15, I knew how to disassemble and assemble a radio. At school, I took a radio and reassembled it in the notebook paper so that no one could take it away,” he recalls, adding that ICT was his hobby but limited with visual impairment. Future dreams “I will be contented after being able to participate in the development, programming and distribution of Kinyarwanda software that will facilitate persons with visual impairment in getting access to ICT and contribute to services delivery in general,” Vuguziga said. Vuguziga plans to develop websites that are accessible to all categories of people, including visually impaired persons. “I think that it will be excellent when I develop an app that can be installed in smartphones and be distributed across the world. Simply, I believe that I will have my own innovation in this field,” he says. Vuguziga uses a laptop. John Mbaraga. In a move to enlighten the lives of persons with disabilities, Vuguziga thinks that he will establish a ‘rehabilitation centre’ at some point in time in the future. “In 2008, after finding out that a visually- impaired person can use a computer, I got more determined and thought of creating a center that could help in training and rehabilitating people with visual impairment. This is because ICT helps persons who unluckily lose their sight to reintegrate into the society and get involved in social activities,” he says. Skills sharing In a bid to share his knowledge with the general public, especially visually-impaired persons, Vuguziga offers ICT training to different people with similar disability by providing them free adaptive softwares. “I’m focused on working than profits; this is because I can’t charge someone who wants to learn from me. When someone needs to learn certain component, I prepare him some notes free of charge,” he says. Vuguziga’s love for work and sharing of knowledge are affirmed by his co-workers who also say that they always learn from him. Alexandre Bonera met Vuguziga in 2012 when he (Bonera) joined the school as a teaching assistant. He was under Vuguziga’s supervision. He affirms that he learnt much from him. “You can’t compare his disability with his ability. Surely, I can say that he spends much of his time in learning and sharing knowledge with every person,” Bonera said. “For us, Vuguziga is a change-maker in ICT education to visually-impaired children. He is also a role model to visually impaired people to realise that disability is not a limit to their lives.” The executive secretary of the National Union of Disabilities Organisation of Rwanda (NUDOR), Jean Damascene Nsengiyumva, said the organisation seeks financial support for Vuguziga so that his initiatives are not wasted. “We also seek ways to talk to people who came up with such initiatives and help them in drafting their projects,” he said, adding that drafted documents are the tools of advocacy. “I think that if we can discuss his projects at length we could support him to run them as long as his mission aims at supporting persons with particular problems,” he said. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Vuguziga, a visually impaired ICT teacher who dreams to change lives of the blind