Beatrice Cherono is a P1 teacher and the Fourth born in her family that resides in Sotik Sub County, Bomet. She began her teaching career in Kapsiongo Primary School under the Board of Management. She was very excited in how life was turning especially with the opportunity to pursue her dream career as a teacher.
In the month of August 2015 Beatrice developed a headache and which later became very serious that after undergoing several tests it was found that she had developed a brain tumor. She underwent surgery in November 2016 at Tenwek Hospital. The surgery seemed to have been successful as the pain had eased. However, the joy was short lived as it was later established that she had permanently lost her sight. The news devastated her entire family. ‘‘I lost hope in life as this meant that I had lost my teaching career which I held dearly’’, she narrates.
Her family shielded her from the outside world by ensuring that she always stayed indoors and not allowed to do any task. This made her feel like a burden to her family as she could not imagine living in such state of dependency.
Beatrice met the Education and Rehabilitation officer based in Bomet through one of her relatives, also a teacher who had gone through Special Need Training (SNE) training, under the Vision Impact Project(VIP). She was taken through counselling together with her father, who also felt that he had lost her, due to her loss of vision. After sessions of counseling that helped her accept the new reality, she was advised to join the Centre of Adaptive Technologies (CAT) at the Kenya Society for the Blind, headquarters in Nairobi. She began full rehabilitation course in January 2023 with much eagerness to be trained especially on the use of computer and a mobile phone.
After successful going through rehabilitation where she completed braille, orientation, mobility and adapted computer skills, she now goes through her day to day activities with much ease as she no longer feels like a burden to her family.She can now move around gracefully, do her laundry and grooming independently.
Through extensive lobbying by Education and Rehabilitation Officer, she applied for a teaching opportunity which she emerged successful and was posted to a primary school in Sotik. She attributes this to the connection and the specialized training gained through her rehabilitation.
