Forget tissue paper, the blind want to be multi-skilled

1

TIME FOR CHANGE: Isa Ngau is all for training the blind to be multi-skilled through a specialised training centre in Miri.

MIRI: The Society of the Blind Miri/Bintulu (POBMB) yearns to train blind people into multi-skilled individuals, and not stereotyped ones selling handicraft and tissue paper.

Towards this end, they have recently submitted an application to the Land and Survey Department for a piece of land to enable them to build a skills training centre here.

Its chairman Isa Ngau told The Borneo Post recently that the centre would be used to teach blind people a myriad of skills, such as how to make handicraft, provide massage service, repair computers, or venture into the agriculture sector.

“Most blind people here are kind of left behind (by society) and their economic capacity is relatively low. This is partly because of a lack of facilities for them to undergo specific courses.”

Isa, who is also a lecturer teaching living skills and reflexology at the Society of Blind Training Centre Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur, stressed that the time had come for the society to have a skills training centre to uplift the living standard of the blind community.

He pointed out that most blind individuals registered under POBMB earned their living, working as masseurs or selling tissue.

“We want the members to be multi-skilled. We don’t want them to limit themselves to selling handicraft and tissue.”

POBMB was set up last year, and thus far, some 37 blind people from Miri and Bintulu had registered with it.

Activities planned for this year include computer literacy skill and agriculture courses, chess competitions, reflexology massage courses, job seminars, and a joint collaboration programme with the Welfare Department to help blind people in Miri and Bintulu.