There is a lot of potential for people who are blind and visually impaired to find employment opportunities in Samoa.

So says Trainer, Anna Lau, from the Index Braille Technology in Malaysia, who is facilitating a Braille Embosser Training designed to prepare the blind and those who are visually impaired for the future.

Members of the Samoa Blind Persons Association (S.B.P.A.) and Nuanua O le Alofa (N.O.L.A.) are participating in the training.

Ms. Lau said the Samoan Government would need blind people in the future using braille.

“I understand that you do not have the blind school yet but this will be in the future,” she said.

“The Government will sometime in the future need to develop books for the blind children or inside office and they will need people with the experience to make that happen,” she said.

Ms. Lau said they are the pioneer that will assist the Government to produce braille materials, especially the textbooks and maybe probably in the future for voting.

The training intends to also help the employment system for the blind people by putting up their own braille production unit.

Ms. Lau said that in order to do that, they must learn how to use the braille embosser in order to produce the braille, how to set up the embosser, how to create and translate the documents and format.

Board member of the S.B.P.A. and one of the trainees, Ari Hazleman, said one of the important things he has learned is providing more accessible information in braille for blind people in a quick and efficient manner.

The training is a part of the project that began in 2016 to set up a braille production unit so that they can produce braille.

Mr. Hazelman said they are extremely grateful to the Samoa Civil Society Support Programme for funding. The training continues at the Nola conference room at Saleufi.