Challenges faced by Women With Visual Impairment in Living a Sustainable Livelihood

The nature of the challenges faced by women with visual impairments remains uncertain. However, studies have been done on women with disabilities in general but none has focused on women with visual impairments. This study sought to establish the challenges faced by women with visual impairments in living a sustainable livelihood in urban areas. A descriptive survey design was used in order to obtain a true and comprehensive picture of individuality. Primary data was collected through interview schedules and questionnaires. Data was collected from women with visual impairments in selected government line ministries. For those not in employments, data was collected from the central business district where they parade to ask for alms from well wishers. The target sample was all women with visual impairments registered with the Federation for the Blind and based in Lusaka urban. Stratified sampling was used to classify women with visual impairments into their economic status such as those in formal employment and those not working at all. Sixteen (50%) of women with visual impairments were in formal employment while sixteen (50%) were on the street begging. Twenty-one (66%) of the women with visual impairment revealed that they were not able to live a sustainable livelihood due to the different challenges they faced while eleven (44%) stressed that they were managing because they had a salary though it was not enough to cater for their basic needs. From the findings it has been noted that women with visual impairments have a lot of challenges on sustainable livelihood. Sixty-six (66%) of the women stated that they were not able to live a sustainable livelihood, as most of them depended on begging for their livelihood. The money they realised from begging could not meet all their basic needs. The findings also reveal that the women with visual impairments despite their level of education, could not be offered any other job apart from being telephone operators. From the sixteen (50%) of women with visual impairments who are in formal employment, eleven (69%) had attained grade nine while five (31%) were grade twelve school leavers and yet they were doing the same job. The grade twelve school leavers felt unfairly treated because sight had disadvantaged them in the area of wanting to do other professions of their dreams. Further, it was found that there were some cultural factors that contribute to the challenges women with visual impairments face. In as much as they know that they have no sight, they feel they must be appreciated as human beings just like the women with sight. The findings show that Challenges faced by Women With Visual Impairment in Living a Sustainable Livelihood twenty (63%) of all the participants indicated that they were discriminated, segregated and abused by the sighted in different ways. Eleven (35%) of the women with visual impairment stated that as they were growing up, they were over-protected and over- looked and this had contributed to their poverty situation today. The results of the study indicate that there is a strong relationship between being visually impaired and sustainable livelihood among women despite their education levels. The study has also revealed that although there is so much awareness on disability issues, women with visual impairments are still discriminated and excluded from the mainstream activities. Therefore, stakeholders in disability issues should address the plight of these women. Recommendations made include: (a) Government and stakeholders in the welfare of women with visual impairments should ensure that information on Citizen Economic Empowerment is transcribed into Braille if the visually impaired are to benefit from the scheme. (b) Government through appropriate authorities should reduce the number of procedures involved in accessing the funds. (c) Since education is a factor in improving the livelihood of an individual, government through relevant ministries should build more schools and provide bursaries and or scholarships to the visually impaired to attain vocational training. (d) The visually impaired who have attained high school level should be allowed to venture into careers of their choice.