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Coding becomes more and more accessible in Africa

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October is World Blindness Awareness Month and Tangible Africa, an engagement project of Nelson Mandela University and the Leva Foundation, has been pushing hard to bridge the digital divide by making coding more inclusive to the visually impaired and blind across Africa.

Tactile Coding Workshops – where coding concepts are introduced to blind and visually impaired youth and their teachers – have been presented simultaneously in South Africa and Kenya – with very interactive and enthusiastic participants.

“During these workshops the participants are equipped with tactile tools and the TANKS Coding App to introduce learners to the wonderful world of coding. The tactile coding kit is an African solution for Africa,” said Tangible Africa Founder and Head of the Department and Associate Professor at the Nelson Mandela University Computing Sciences Department, Prof Jean Greyling.

The coding kit with supporting materials adapted to ensure accessibility for the blind and visually impaired, is locally manufactured (in Soshanguve, Mthatha and Gqeberha), and was designed by Bona Africa, a collaborative project between Tangible Africa and the Eastern Cape non-profit programme, Bona uBuntu.

In a further partnership with the South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (SADTU), Bona Africa trained teachers from schools for the visually impaired across all nine provinces in South Africa, during a series of 17 workshops which concluded last week.

After the Cape Town training, Samantha Daniels (a blind teacher from the Athlone School for the Blind) had the following to say: “As a visually impaired person I felt included from the start to the end. Thanks for making it as inclusive as it was. That is very rare. People with disabilities are not always accommodated.”

Mr Michael Bredenkamp, headmaster of Pioneer School for the Blind in Worcester, also shared his enthusiasm: “I was very sceptical about the presentation. In my mind, coding was the same as writing programmes for computers, and to achieve that with our visually impaired children is going to be a bridge too far. My mind was blown open by the presentation of Tangible Africa and the possibility that it holds for correlation with other subjects. I came back from the presentation, mind racing about how coding can enhance decision-making, focus on tasks, and achieve goals in a fun way.”

And simultaneously staff from Thika Primary School in Nairobi, Kenya – one of the largest schools for blind and visually impaired youth in East Africa – were also introduced to tangible coding by Tangible Africa Engagement Manager, Jackson Tshabalala.

During his trip he presented at the ICEVI Africa Conference in Kenya earlier this month (October) which focused on “The future of education for people with visual impairment in Africa” and Tangible Africa received a very enthusiastic response from various African countries following the presentation.

“The project was met with fascination and commended for being innovative by conference attendees. There was expressed interest from multiple parties in getting involved with the project. The primary objectives of attending this conference were to explore partnership opportunities and to gain insights into innovations in the field of education for people with visual impairments,” said Tshabalala.

He said as a result of the partnerships made during the conference in Kenya, the feasibility of implementing the Bona Africa project in Uganda and Ghana is being explored.

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