Labour sidelines institute for blind

27 February 2015 - 02:41 By Katharine Child
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Visually impaired man
Visually impaired man
Image: Walter Astrada

The 134-year-old Institute of the Blind that offers vocational training to the visually impaired could close down due to a severe shortage of funds, especially after the Department of Labour pulled its subsidy.

The closure would leave the 530 blind and disabled people who live at the Worcester institute homeless.

The school for the blind, which offers a normal education to many disabled, is short of R4.2-million for running costs. Only 15% of the school and institute's budget of R51-million is supplied by the government.

Each year, the institute needs to fund-raise R43-million from the public to run its factories, its training programmes, the school and its care home.

Hein Wagner, a blind runner who completed the Antarctic Marathon last year, attended the school for the blind as a child. He said there was a lack of state funding for schools for pupils with disabilities.

He said if the institute were to shut down, blind people would not receive free skills and employment training.

He said: "This training responsibility would therefore rest heavier on the shoulders of the government, which is not in the position to offer orientation and mobility training to the blind. This would lead to visually impaired persons being totally dependent on their families."

It is not clear why government funding has been cut.

The institute has also been unable to access funding Lotto funding. It stated there are about 1.2million partially sighted South Africans and 97% are unemployed.

Wagner said: "If the institute did not avail employment opportunities at its production facilities to persons who are visually impaired, this unemployment percentage would be even higher."

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