Like many of the disabilities affecting Africa, visual impairment is still perceived in some quarters as an affliction and a curse placed upon victims for the sins they have committed. The persistence of these negative perceptions continue to have long lasting negative implications on active involvement of people with visual impairment across several life domains. Despite African governments' efforts to address the educational needs of students with visual impairments through inclusive education practices, numerous challenges remain concerning meeting the unique needs of these individuals in schools. Moreover, little is known about inherent African practices for addressing the educational needs of individuals with visual impairment as modern trends have overshadowed these practices. Therefore, this chapter focuses on the African perspective of visual impairments, with particular attention on how African beliefs and attitudes towards persons with visual impairment influence supporting the needs of this population.
TopBackground
According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2020), there are currently 2.2 billion people in the world who are reported to have blindness or some other form of visual impairment. Of this population, 1 billion cases could have been prevented or are yet to be addressed and this includes individuals with moderate or severe far-sightedness or blindness emanating from unaddressed errors of refraction, as well as near-sightedness resulting from unaddressed presbyopia. Again, estimates show that every five seconds, at least one individual in the world becomes blind and at least one child is reported to go blind every minute despite the fact that 80% of all causes of visual impairments are avoidable and treatable (WHO, 2020). The current estimates of people with visual impairments have greatly exceeded the WHO 2010 predictions that the number of individuals with blindness or visual impairment would have increased from 285 million to 360 million by 2020., if preventive measures were not taken. Since the number of individuals with visual impairments exceeded the WHO 2010 predictions, this could mean that necessary preventive measures were not taken.
The majority of people with visual impairment in the world live in low- and middle-income countries (WHO, 2020). Regarding differences between world regions, far-sightedness is estimated to be four times more prevalent in low- and middle-income regions than in high income regions. In addition, unaddressed near-sightedness cases are estimated to exceed 80% in countries located in the eastern, western, and central parts of sub-Saharan Africa compared to less than 10% of similar cases reported in high-income countries found in North America, Western Europe, Australasia, and Asia-Pacific (WHO, 2020).
According to Mganga et al. (2011), African countries such as Mozambique, Ethiopia, Liberia, Sudan, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) that encountered some of the most terrible natural and man-made disasters ever known to mankind, have been reported to experience high rates of people with blindness. For example, regarding the population aged over 49 years in Rwanda in 2006, the total proportion of persons with visual impairment was 5.3% (excluding presbyopia) and the percentage of persons with blindness was 1.8% (Binagwaho et al., 2015). Moreover, it is estimated that more than 0.6% of Rwandese have blindness in both eyes and 12% of the population (including individuals with presbyopia) experience errors of refraction that can be corrected, thus requiring corrective lenses (Rwanda Ministry of Health, 2009). Therefore, it is worth noting that the political tensions, and civil wars, and other forms of socio-political and economic unrest have resulted in many African residents and citizens having visual impairments.