•Blind Unilag graduate recalls he couldn’t have gone to school without scholarship from MTN Foundation
By Gloria Ikegbule
Certainly, Sola Ajayi, a blind, University of Lagos (Unilag) Law graduate, is a scholar of repute. He is increasingly building a reputation as an outstanding example of one who believes in the huge strength that can be found in disability. Born in the late 1980s, Ajayi’s childhood, like his peers was bright, beautiful and fun until the unfortunate event of his loss of sight hit him like thunderbolt.
Waking up to a major disability is no doubt a tragedy that could bring unexpected pain and sadness to a victim, family and friends who have to provide moral support, love and care for the affected. For Ajayi, his family members were more than supportive even though they were shocked at his new challenge.
“My mother couldn’t take it; she couldn’t understand how her little son, full of life, who was holidaying at grandma’s place, would be brought back home blind; she wanted her son back just the way he left the house and it was understandable.”
According to Ajayi, his loss of sight was a gradual process: “I woke up one morning and started to see black spots; I was really surprised and scared as the black spots increased in number and became so many. Finally the spots covered the whole of my eyes and formed something like a dark curtain over my sight which became all I could see as there was no room for partial sight.”
Ajayi’s case is one of the many stories of visually-impaired people in Nigeria and their struggle to live and excel in a prejudiced society.
However, blindness is no respecter of race, age or gender; in fact, anyone who enjoys the gift of sight is also at risk of blindness from several causes. This explains why, in 1999, following the observed trend in blindness, data available the World Health Organisation and the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness showed that, unless active action were taken, a total of 75 million people (based on projections from available blindness prevention data) would be blind worldwide by the year 2020.
This alarming projection is responsible for the many advocacies for education and empowerment of the visually impaired around the world; the belief is that everyone, regardless of their challenge, deserves to enjoy quality education and attain reasonable heights of success.
Daily Sun learned that this was part of the reason some organisations have chosen to make the life of the visually-impaired fulfilled and brighter in Nigeria. One of them is the MTN Foundation, which has sustained a scholarship scheme for the blind. The scheme, aims at providing academic scholarship annually to eligible full-time students who are visually-impaired and is available to students in accredited tertiary institutions (universities, polytechnics and colleges of education) across the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. The scholarship covers tuition and book allowances for one year, and is renewable after a beneficiary has maintained a cumulative grade point average of 2.5.
Ajayi, at the moment, is a beneficiary of this initiative and has, by virtue of the foundation’s support, become the first graduate in his family.
“I am proud of this initiative and very thankful; today, I am the only graduate in my family. One unique consideration given to us is the acceptance of second class lower for blind students, however, we are not allowed to go below the second class lower grade and that has kept most of us focused and more determined to achieve success,” he said, adding, “In appreciation for the support, I wrote my final year project on the inadequacy of parental responsibility under family law, just to educate and encourage parents to provide all the support needed for their challenged children to scale through life. I am happy about my progress and my aspiration is to practice law, which is fast becoming a reality.”
Daily Sun gathered that one feature of the scheme is the employability training workshop, where students are trained and enabled by MTN to take up the challenge of self-employment in Nigeria.
In Ajayi’s case, they were trained in the use of computers and telephones, particularly smartphones, to enable them live independently as much as possible and cope with whatever job they find themselves doing.
During the recently held MTN Foundation Scholars alumni conference, Director, MTN Foundation, Dennis Okoro, assured the candidates of MTN Foundations’ continuous support. He urged them to see the scholarship as a rare opportunity that must be well utilised. To the alumni of the foundation, Okoro said: “Now that you have all gained and have been empowered, it is essential that you show yourselves as worthy ambassadors of the programme. Feel free to exhibit your creativity positively and contribute your quota to the development of the country; also remain assured of our continuous support.”
It was gathered that since the inception of the scholarship scheme for the blind, the MTN Foundation has awarded 737 scholarships to blind students and a total of N147,400,000 has been expended on the initiative.