SIF helping blind to help themselves

The National Society of and for the Blind is the recipient of $38,952 from the St.Vincent and the Grenadines Social Investment Fund. The support is part of the Social Investment Fund (SIF) assistance to vulnerable groups and is funded through the Alba Caribe Fund. The project will see over 20 blind persons supported by their families, involved in a Poultry Rearing Project aimed at assisting them in their own development.

According to David Latchman, Community Resource Officer with the SIF, the project was designed to assist blind persons to become gainfully employed and self-supporting rather than develop a dependency on welfare.{{more}}

Latchman also highlighted the need for persons with disabilities to begin pooling their resources, and start looking at the possibility of a combined disabilities association, which can better provide for a wider range of persons, while reducing high administration and overhead cost.

Representing the association for and of the blind, Stanley Richards, himself a blind man, encouraged the participants to make a success of the project for themselves, and for the organisation.

The programme will deliver support to the participants in the form of three batches of chickens over a nine-month period. The beneficiaries have committed to building their own chicken pen and would in turn donate $50 and one whole chicken per batch to another blind person to assist in the sustainability of the programme.