Donation of Packets of Braille Papers from Friends of Visually Impaired Children in the Gambia:

We continue to thank Friends of Visually Impaired Children in the Gambia for their continuous support to the vision and mission of Start Now. We are happy to informed you that since you built the new Start Now center in Brikama, we are free from the burden of rent and proudly continue to support many visually impaired young people and adults to learn skills to become self-confidence and independent.

Your recent donation of braille papers, has gone a long way to enable Start Now to provide braille training as well as extended support to visually impaired children and youth across the Gambia. Recently, Start Now is implementing a training program for visually impaired young people called Blind Mentors Gambia www.facebook.com/blindmentorsgambia. The program is aimed to empower and provide training opportunities for young visually impaired in rural Gambia on blind techniques skills so that they can become confident and independent.

Alieu Jaiteh Founder/Director of Start Now is one of three recipients of the 2019 Holman Prize for Blind Ambition. The Holman Prize is awarded annually by LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired in San Francisco to three blind individuals with ambitious ideas. With his Holman Prize Award, Alieu initiated Blind Mentors Gambia. The project aims to empower and train a total of eighty blind and partially sighted within the age of fourteen to thirty-five years in rural Gambia. This age group faces the greatest risk of becoming street beggars due to marginalization.

The training program will be implemented in four regions in rural Gambia. The regions to visit are Lower River Region, Central River Region, Upper River Region, and North Bank Region. Currently Alieu and team has started the Blind Mentors Gambia program and the first 20 young visually impaired in Upper River Region received training support www.facebook.com/blindmentorsgambia.

Your donation of braille papers to Start Now is a compliment towards the Blind Mentors Gambia agenda in rural Gambia. The papers enable us to teach our participants on braille reading and writing as well as provide them with individual donation of packet of braille papers as this will help them in their schools and work.

We thank you, your friends and partners for your wonderful support in empowering visually impaired people in the Gambia. Your contributions impacted many lives and as a results, many visually impaired are successful today than before and are working in different fields in the Gambia. Thanks for your service to humanity and your struggle for inclusion.

As we are reaching and expanding our work to benefit visually impaired across the Gambia, we continue to seek for support to sustained our training activities. Mobility/mini bus will help to transport beneficiaries coming from far areas to attend training at Start Now. Many visually impaired wish to visit the center regularly, but due to accessibility, many are deprived from benefiting the training and services. More training equipment and materials will help to facilitate training and provide individual support to our beneficiaries, such as braille machines, braille papers, white canes, recorders and computers/laptops.

Thank you for your support and partnership.

Sincerely, Alieu Jaiteh Founder/Director Start Now.