CYBERCAFÉS AS A TOOL
FOR INCLUSION
Presentation by Mr Christophe OULÉ, trainer in accessible IT tools
U . N. – A . B. P. A. M.
National Union of Burkinabé Associations for the Promotion
of the Blind and Sight-impaired
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Ouagadougou, BURKINA FASO
ITU Workshop on Accessibility, Nairobi, Kenya,
27 – 30 September 2011
Sight-impaired persons must
get access to ICTs
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After completing their training, trainees do not have access to accessible
equipment, which is extremely expensive.
Cybercafés – even if they are going out of fashion – are still the best
means of accessing the Internet for the majority of people in our
countries.
Poverty, lack of or unreliable power supply and uneven geographical
distribution of infrastructures prevent the connection of households to the
Internet.
The accessible cybercafé for sight-impaired persons, whose establishment
we announced at the ITU workshop on accessibility in Mali in 2009, came
into being in July 2010.
It is the fruit of an agreement between the Burkinabé Government and
ITU, which financed the equipment.
The environment offered in our centre enables our young people to
familiarize themselves with the tools and language of IT, and to be «cool».
The revenues generated from the paying public, even though they are
inadequate, contribute to defraying operating costs.
Why did we choose a cybercafé?
More and more students with sight disabilities are going to university or
seeking to undertake vocational training.
How can we guide young students to take up the disciplines of their choice
when the teaching materials are not available in Braille?
Realizing that IT is an opportunity for the effective insertion of persons
with sight disabilities, we began providing accessible IT training in 2007.
We thus give our students the chance to use IT tools to improve their
results. They thereby have access to many more documents.
For those seeking employment, IT skills are a big asset. An accessible
workstation removes any problems of written communication between a
blind staff member and his/her sighted colleagues.
Cybercafé equipment
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4 accessible computers (2 for the blind and 2 for the partially sighted) and
2 regular computers (for sighted persons)
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1 server computer
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2 Braille touchpads and 2 scanners
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1 colour printer and 1 Braille printer. Accessible software: screen reader,
screen magnifier, Braille transcription, character recognition. 3 computers
of which 2 are adapted in order to increase the intake capacity of our
training unit.
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The Ministry for Posts and Information and Communication Technologies
(MPICT) ensures the provision of a permanent high-speed Internet
connection.
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With this equipment, the cybercafé is open to sighted, blind and sightimpaired persons. Everyone works in the same environment.
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If this is possible in a cybercafé, why would it not be so in an
administrative office or a private company?
Impact of the cybercafé and
management challenges
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The inauguration of our cybercafé offered the opportunity to bring
together four ministers and their aides and show them the committed
action we are taking to ensure our socio-economic insertion.
The many outsiders who come into the cybercafé leave with the conviction
that the sight-impaired are quite capable of using IT tools.
During the academic year, our students use the room to carry out
research for group presentations.
Many of our young people have opened messaging accounts, which they
unfortunately use without any confidentiality, since they have not yet been
trained.
We recall the promises given by the ITU representative at the inauguration
of the cybercafé in respect of our needs in terms of training and capacity
building.
Similarly, we are expecting our MPITC to act with a subsidy for our
training unit and the cybercafé.
The project needs to be replicated at Bobo Dioulasso, Burkina Faso’s
second city.
The cybercafé is an opportunity for the blind and sight-impaired in
Ouagadougou to extricate themselves from the ditch and make their way
at least onto the verges of the information highway!