AGRICE tries to overcome this situation by providing a home, safety, food, medical assistance and access to education to blind children and young people. AGRICE undertakes rural rescue missions to search for blind children, as well as children with other disabilities, who often have extremely difficult lives. During these missions, AGRICE also raises rural communities’ awareness that disabled children and young people have the same rights as all other children and young people, and teaches people how to protect themselves and their children against common eye diseases.
In the city of Bissau, AGRICE has established a school, Escola Bengala Branca, or the White Cane School, where blind children and young people learn how to write and read braille along with all the others subjects children should learn. This is also a place where they can develop their capacities in safety and be in contact with other children, blind and non-blind, since the school has adopted an inclusive methodology and provides education for all.
As a part of this project there is also a foster home for children and young people living far from their families, and those who were abandoned or neglected by them. In the foster home their nutritional, medical, hygiene and other social needs are guaranteed by a team. The children also learn “to get washed and dressed, do cleaning, wash dishes, cook simple meals, and other life skills for independent living in the future and to be able to help their families when they return home.”1
With these two social responses the project provides the conditions for the healthy and safe development of blind children and young people, with a clear purpose: whenever possible, these children and young people should return to their families as skilled and self‑sufficient individuals. One of the main ideas is to “help children and young people move back home. They prepare the children’s families, neighbours and teachers in their villages before the children return, so that they will be welcomed in a positive way. If it is not possible for a child to be reunited with their family, they help the child to find a foster family.”2
The project promotes the inclusion of these children and young people and, consequently, all blind people in society. It affirms the fact that they are citizens with duties and rights like non-blind persons, fights prejudice, raises awareness about what it means to be blind and how to prevent blindness, and works daily to achieve the goal of leaving no one behind.
