Nigeria: social and professional inclusion of visually impaired people

Providing access to an equal-opportunity education and professional life for visually people.

 

Nigeria is part of a group of sub-Saharan countries where the estimated prevalence of blindness is one of the highest in the world. Lagos, its most populous city is home to close to 20 million inhabitants, yet schools for the blind remain scarce and visually impaired children and students attend normal schools which often lack dedicated infrastructure and educational tools.

two students with Braill books

Availability of textbooks in Braille is an essential building block and, if not available, often a limiting factor for students to be able to follow better and more adapted schooling. With our support, Givaudan Nigeria partnered with a local organisation specialising in social initiatives aimed at visually impaired individuals, to buy new Braille embossers which were used to produce academic Braille books for secondary schools. These covered various areas (such as mathematics, literature, economics and biology), and were distributed to a college in Lagos.

In addition, employee volunteers from Givaudan Nigeria shared their expertise in flavours with the students through activities based on the sense of taste, where students had the opportunity to express themselves on topics related to food and flavours.

The 'Touch and Flavour' project opened new horizons for our association. The two new embossers purchased, as well as the Braille books produced for blind students, will positively impact the life of blind and visually impaired in Nigeria far beyond the project lifecycle.


Edwige, Nigerwives Braille Book Production Centre representative

More recently, a new initiative to help visually impaired people access the job market with the same partner organisation. The aim is, through the development of a new set of skills in the fragrance field, help the project participants to generate additional revenue. 

The initiative's beneficiaries have learned about raw materials used in perfumery, the current trends and the basics of marketing, the blending of fragrances and the manufacturing of fragranced items notably used in consumer products (such as liquid dishwasher soap). Throughout the duration of the training, all participants showed great motivation and discipline.

training course to manufacture fragrance items

Givaudan volunteers from Nigeria actively took part in the initiative since its beginning providing coordination support, scents for the training, expertise in sales & marketing, supporting participants in finding short-term internships after the course completion and encouraging them to continue developing their skills.

Following the course completion all participants received a starter kit containing material to help them continue applying their skills 

 

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