South Africa: School restoration and sensory activities with visually impaired
Offering sensory experiences and support for the repair of a school for blind children.
Education is essential for the integration of visually impaired people into society. In South Africa, there are a very limited number of specialised schools and most of them lack proper infrastructure.
Thanks to the initiative of Givaudan South Africa employees, two projects were developed in partnership with the non-governmental organisation Blind SA.
In Johannesburg, workshops are prepared and delivered by the employees.
They are centered on particular themes such as “A journey of the senses through Africa”. They are organised to give visually impaired students the opportunity to discover smells and flavours from diverse African countries to enrich their cultural knowledge and thus, to increase their self-confidence.
This is reflected, for instance, in a noticeable improvement in the students’ public speaking skills when sharing their learning. From 2021 to 2022, the team of Givaudan volunteers adapted their fragrances workshops to an online version and have continued with this format over the last few years. In 2023, they organised a fragrance competition among all participating schools.
In addition from this first project a second initiative took place in a school for the blind in the Limpopo region, in the northeast corner of the country. There, new infrastructure were provided for the school.
Overall, more than 130 visually impaired students have benefitted from these impactful initiatives.
"We believe it is crucial that we get out of our day-to-day routine and give a bit of ourselves to our community. There is so much to do to help with empowering the blind community locally and we are aiming to build a long-term partnership with the network of schools for the blind within South Africa."
Pierre, Givaudan employee
