By Kesah Princely, in Buea
Since from childhood, Angoh Kingsley, a person with visual impairment has had much concern about the difficulties his peers face as they go about their daily activities; a worry he addresses in his PhD thesis.
The intellectual defended the doctorial thesis titled: “Applied Orientation as a Correlate to Effective Mobility of Persons with Visual Impairment” in the faculty of education boardroom, University of Buea, Thursday March 17, 2022.
The scholar took ample time to defend the fact that proper orientation could be vital in enabling persons with visual impairment (PVI) to move independently and hitch free in their surroundings.
In his over 2-hour presentation, the researcher intimated that despite having lost their sight, the remaining senses of feeling, hearing, smelling, and taste are key to PVIs.
He further underscored that hearing turns out to be the most useful to this category of people. This, he explained, is due to the fact that it is possible to comprehend happenings from afar, despite not being able to see them.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with TWIF NEWS shortly after defending the Special Education thesis in the department of Educational Psychology, the new Doctor revealed that the topic was conceived many years ago when he was a child.
Growing up as a person with visual impairment, he began pondering on better ways to encourage the free movement of white cane users.
“I have seen many of my peers with visual impairment walk into fatal accidents, and many dropped out of school because of difficulties to move independently from one place to another,” Doctor Kingsley regrettably revealed.
The scholar believes that the findings of his research are a catalyst to building a disability-friendly environment.
“When government and private individuals construct structures, they need to respect the universal design, thereby ensuring that the infrastructure are made accessible to persons with visual impairment,” he said, adding that it is crucial to consult persons with visual challenges and consider their disability during conception and implementation of such projects.
The new doctor told TWIF NEWS that the scholarly piece which he recently defended will be presented in different associations of persons with visual impairment so that everybody could benefit from the knowledge gathered in the three-year-long research.
Angoh Kingsley becomes the third person with visual impairment to have defended a PhD thesis in the University of Buea since creation in 1993.
Before him, Doctors Nyugap Charly and Suh Ngwa had defended in 2018 and 2021 respectively.
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