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Visually impaired students reach for the stars

Thursday, 11 March 2010

SAVING a shuttle mission from disaster, scuba diving while changing a battery in a weightless environment and taking a trip to Mars. It will all be in a day’s work for eight lucky students of St Joseph’s Centre for the Visually Impaired, Drumcondra, who will become astronauts for a week in September at the Space Camp for Interested Visually Impaired Students (SCIVIS) in Huntsville, Alabama. Brian Allen, chief executive of St Joseph’s Centre for the Visually Impaired, believes the experience for the students will be empowering.  “The children at St Joseph’s have all the same dreams and hopes as other children of their age such as wanting to be an astronaut,” said Mr Allen.  “Dreams of being an astronaut may seem out of reach to a child who is blind or visually impaired, but the SCIVIS programme in Alabama offers children that opportunity to live their dreams. “The confidence the children gain from the experience is invaluable. “We have sent children to the camp for the last 10 years and each year they come back with an increased sense of their own potential.” The visually impaired campers will get to simulate a shuttle mission, experience the lightness of walking on the moon and learn how to raise a satellite. They will also hear from a guest speaker who works in space exploration. The programme is specially devised for the visually impaired, using the cutting edge technology including tactile Braille displays and synthetic speech for computers. Each student is screened based on their eye medical condition.  The programme is coordinated by teachers of the visually impaired and takes place over a week-long camp at the US Space and Rocket Centre in Huntsville, Alabama. This year, the Noel O’Reilly Bursary Award, kindly donated to St Joseph’s by Belvedere Football Club, will sponsor Elena Libman and James Kavanagh, students at the centre. Noel O’Reilly, a former social care worker at St Joseph’s Centre and an assistant to Brian Kerr at Irish underage and senior team levels, passed away in 2008 following a short illness. Each year St Joseph’s will select a suitable recipient for the award. Meanwhile, a number of fundraising events are currently underway to launch the students on their way. Staff at St Joseph’s are looking for volunteers to join them in the Great Irish Run in the Phoenix Park on April 18 to raise funds for the trip.