CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Background to the Study

Historically, United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2008) has played essential role in promoting and advocating equal rights for the disabled as mentioned in Article (19) that all persons with disabilities should live in the community with full inclusion and to participate in the community with choice equal to others.

Within the period of 1940‟s to 1960‟s, disability prevention and rehabilitation was the primary focus of United Nations. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended, 29 U.S.C. 794 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. 12131, emphasized on protecting and integrating individuals with disability based on disability discrimination, (Clemente, Higgins, & Shah, 2015).

It was discovered that one of the human’s biological organs used to facilitate social interaction is vision, because one third to one over two of the brain is devoted to pure visual processing and 90% of sensory input is vision (Clemente, Higgins, & Shah, 2015). Vision allows people to gather process and react to the environment, enables them to plan movements, move within their environment, and maintain an upright position in space. It also allows individuals to accurately attend to environmental information, integrate it, and use it to make daily decisions.

In the ancient western world disabled subjects were excluded from social life. In ancient Greece disability was surmounted only by means of its complete removal, and given that disease was considered a punishment attributed by divinities to human beings because of their faults and sins, only a full physical, mental, and moral recovery could reinsert disabled subjects back in the society of “normal” people, (Heckmann, 2006)

The advent of Christianity in the Mediterranean area led to another fundamental change of paradigm. People suffering from major disabilities were often described in the Gospels where they also became subjects of miraculous healings. This miraculous rehabilitation was both physical (the deaf could really hear after the miracle) and spiritual, since rehabilitated individuals, such as lepers, were able to fully participate again in the civil society of the time. The same Gospels fostered solidarity, sympathy, and participation towards poor and sick disabled people, including the blind, the deaf, and the lame, based on moral and spiritual motivations in a Christian perspective, (Alma 2012).

Conceptually, According to Heckmann (2006), the term “rehabilitation” has many definitions, and that relating to the semantic area of medical health consider rehabilitation as the “restoration (of a disabled person, a criminal, etc.) to some degree of normal life by appropriate training”, issue of the Lancet where it is possible to read that “the little sufferers (i.e., children that suffer) from parental ignorance or neglect are admitted as patients, and their physical rehabilitation attempted under conditions most favourable to success.”

(Clemente, Higgins, & Shah, 2015).   Suttie, Howley, Dryden, Magnusdottir and Verstraten  (2014) observe cumulative negative impact of blindness and vision loss, the compound impact includes: Reduced ability to access information and health services; Increased risk of depression and anxiety and loss of self-esteem;  Loss of independence for self-care, daily activities and mobility; Reduced social participation; Increased risk of falls and domestic accidents so also vision impairment is associated with decreased life expectancy among older people, even in high income countries.

The International Labor Organization (2017) observed that people with disabilities, persons with visual impairment inclusive faced discrimination and other barriers to full participation in social, economic, political and cultural life. They are more likely to be unemployed or earn less than non-people with disability and be in jobs with poor promotional prospects and working conditions. Many work in the unprotected, informal economy. Few have access to skills development and other opportunities that would enable them to earn a decent living. The potential of very many women with disability and men remains untapped and unrecognized, leaving a majority in poverty, dependence and social exclusion.

Heckmann (2006) affirms that social integration stands for the inclusion of new individual actors in a system, for the creation of mutual relationships among actors and for their attitudes to the social system as a whole. New actors in this study refer to adults with visual impairment who need to be integrated among their sighted peers in all aspects of life and participate toward nation building.

Categorically, International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) states that participation involved: Domestic life, which comprises light household activities (e.g. doing the dishes, dusting, ironing, and cooking), heavy household activities (e.g. window cleaning, vacuuming, and mopping), assisting others (i.e. informal assistance of others outside the individual’s own home), and shopping (alone or with someone else).

Interpersonal interactions and relationships which was defined as socializing, defined as meeting relatives, friends, or neighbors in person, including contact by telephone or e-mail. Major life areas which comprises paid work and voluntary work and the community, social and civic life which comprised involvement in clubs or associations in hobby activities going out to recreational places for entertainment (e.g. nature reserve, forest, public garden, recreation area;) cultural places (e.g. theatre, cinema, museum) and public places (e.g. café or restaurant; going on holidays, involvement in sports activities and in religious activities. (Cite from website or Alma 2012). The above factors could be summarized as self-esteem, self-reliance, community participation and economic participation which were the objectives of this study.

Statement of the Problem

A higher level of education enables students with visual impairment to get better chances to integrate into society in general, and into employment in particular, so that they may sustain themselves financially with dignity.

The lack of success in implementing rehabilitation services with person with visual impaired could be attributed to different factors such as difference in multidisciplinary assessment of the needs of the persons with visual impairment, inadequate psychosocial support, lack of home adaptation assessments, little or no intervention to help the visual impaired person and safety develop compensatory skills and abilities, lack of properly trained educators to teach such learners. Therefore, it is pertinent to promote rehabilitation services for persons with visual impairment in the society which lead to social integration, and this prompted the study.

Persons with visual impairment, especially adults with visual impairment are perceived as dependent, isolated from participation in community services and as having poor self-esteem and limited mobility and living skills resulting into their continuous begging on the streets. In this context, an investigation of strategies to facilitate their social integration is essential.

It from this backdrop that the research find it necessary to investigate more on the influence of rehabilitation services on the social integration of persons with visual impairment in Buea municipality.

Objectives of the Study

General objective

To examine the influence of rehabilitation services on the social integration of person with visual impairment in Buea municipality.

Specific objective

1. To examine the influence of psychosocial support on the social integration of person with visual impairment in Buea municipality.
2. To examine the influence of prescription of optical aids following and assessment of the client visual potential on the social integration of person with visual impairment in Buea municipality.
3. To examine the influence of home adaptation assessments on the social integration of person with visual impairment in Buea municipality.

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