Ghislain Donald Adande visiting Raphael, 10, at the Zogbo A primary school in Cotonou. | © Solva - B. Akpo / HI
I was born in Ouidah, on the south coast of Benin, in 1990. My father used to work at the Ouidah Urban District Office, which is now the town hall. When I was 18 months old, he suddenly lost his sight. After trying in vain to find a cure, he was dismissed from his job. As a child, I could see fine. I started my education at the local state primary school but as early as Year 2, I began finding it difficult to see things at a distance. One day, my stepmother realised that I couldn't see properly out of my right eye, but as we didn’t have enough money, and as my marks at school were still very good, my father couldn't do anything about it.
“I lost my sight out of the blue when I was nine. I was in Year 5. I had just reached the front gate of our house when all of a sudden I couldn't see a thing. My parents took me to hospital and the doctors said it was cataracts. I had three operations, all of them unsuccessful. I could have had more tests but at the time, we didn’t have the necessary equipment in Benin. If my parents had had the resources, the solution would have been to send me away for treatment but, as it was, there was no hope.”
I told myself that I had to follow my father’s example and not give up, because despite the fact that he could no longer see, he was still carrying on with his activities. So I started to make myself useful, making brooms, selling small items from home... Until one day, I was told about a school for blind people in Parakou, over 400 km from home. Dad didn't have the money to send me there, but I got support from our church.
“I'd already missed a few years of school, but I told myself I should go, and, as I was still helping my cousins with their homework, I hadn't forgotten everything I’d been taught. I realised that my menial activities were no guarantee of a bright future, so the best thing I could do was go to school.”
I started as a boarder at the Parakou primary school for visually impaired and blind children. I went back to the first grade and then continued until I passed my baccalaureate. I was often the best pupil in my school, the collège d'enseignement général Zongo. From secondary school onwards, I took classes with both disabled and non-disabled students and the teachers weren't really trained to help us.
‘In class, I was very attentive. I would ask my classmates to read what was on the blackboard to me and I would go over the lessons at home. All this required a lot of commitment, as it took time to learn, to make corrections, and so on. I also had to show my thanks to those who were helping me. I often went without breakfast so that I could offer them something. People don't necessarily ask, but they're always more willing to help when you have something to offer them in return.”
After the baccalaureate, I enrolled for a degree at the Ecole Supérieure des Assistants sociaux at the University of Abomey-Calavi. There had been two other students with vision loss before me, but I was the first blind person to join the course. The first contacts with some of the lecturers were not easy and some of them made discouraging comments. They said that social workers have to carry out certain activities that require sight and that it would be too difficult for me.
But I stuck with it. I worked hard, revising my lessons every night to learn what I hadn’t been able to see in class. In the end, I was one of the top three students in my class, when we graduated in 2014. In the early days of my career, it wasn’t always easy. I often had to reassure people, show them my skills and sometimes bring my own equipment to the office to further convince those who were hesitant to trust me.
Since my arrival at HI in December 2022, I have been particularly touched by the warm welcome and the efforts made by the organisation to help me integrate. For example, the purchase of the software I use has been a great help, and the working atmosphere here is really friendly and inclusive. When I go out into the field, I get constant and spontaneous support from my colleagues, which helps me get through the more difficult moments.
However, although I've always found a team ready to help me, I've noticed that some small adaptations still need to be made. There are no floor markings or clearly identifiable corridors, and some platforms are not yet fully accessible. All this can complicate my movements or my tasks. I sometimes ask my colleagues for help with things that may seem simple on the face of it (printing, scanning documents, scheduling my holidays, etc.), but are problematic for me. While these little requests don't seem to pose a problem for the team, I sometimes wish I could become more independent and not always have to ask others for help.
That said, I'd like to stress that these difficulties are largely offset by the kindness and engagement of my colleagues. Their constant support enables me to thrive in the work I do and to contribute fully to the organisation's mission. Thanks to the collaborative atmosphere and HI's commitment to promoting my inclusion, I feel confident. I’m able to take on challenges and I’m fully integrated into the team.
What's more, I love my job. I follow up the children and teenagers we support on the project and liaise with the various partners. From identifying the children to ensuring they get treatment, from training the educational teams to managing the administration, I make sure that everything runs smoothly and that they make good progress. What motivates me is the fact that because of what I do, many of my disabled brothers and sisters will find satisfaction. If there had been similar projects when I was at secondary school, I would have had more opportunities, and some of my friends who dropped out because of the behaviour of certain teachers or financial difficulties could have continued. So that brings me joy: every time I go out into the field, I know that I'm supporting my peers.
“What I like about my job is using myself as an example for raising awareness, for what I ask people to do. I'm a living example of what I tell teachers, apprentices and children: support people with disabilities, give them a bit more time, be patient and make the necessary adaptations, and these people will be able to follow in the same footsteps as everyone else and earn their living independently. They will be autonomous people, able to participate in society and contribute to the economy.”
One of my dreams was to one day work for an international organisation. As you can see, I'm starting to achieve my goals and that motivates me enormously. I would like to continue to move forward in my career with HI or any other humanitarian organisation and work on projects that will contribute to the autonomy of excluded people, including people with disabilities. There are so many people living in extremely vulnerable situations, you only have to go outside Cotonou or Calavi to realise that. I'd like to put something in place to help more people in precarity to get by, especially children, young people and women.
I'm currently finishing a master's degree in child and youth protection, which I’ve been doing at night school. All that's left for me to do is write my dissertation and defend my thesis; it is about the challenges involved in including young disabled people in the workplace: removing barriers, adapting the job, and so on. Because inclusion means adapting the environment to the person with the disability, and not the other way round, as is still all too often the case.
In addition to these considerations, my job allows me to support my family and myself. I'm the father of several children, and I hope they'll grow up healthy and one day be attentive to and at the service of others. I owe a great deal to the people of goodwill who have crossed my path. Church people who have done so much for my life, and teachers who believed in me and gave me a little more of their precious time. Cousins my own age who never gave up on me, who gave me advice and helped me earn a bit of money by working in the fields, buying and selling small articles or making bricks. As well as some very good friends at college and university, who believed in me, including the one who learnt to write in Braille and who, during the holidays, translated certain quotations into Braille and gave them to me at the start of term.
“I would like to say thank you to all the people who have helped make me what I am today, colleagues, friends, brothers. I'm also very grateful to HI for making one of my dreams come true. Finally, thank you to the woman who agreed to walk a little way with me. I wouldn't be who I am today without my family.”
