International Day of Persons with Disabilities

San Salvador, December 3, 2019.

“The Participation and Leadership of Persons with Disabilities: 2030 Development Agenda, this is the theme of the year for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, focusing on empowering persons with disabilities for inclusive, equitable, and sustainable development.” According to the UN.

The United Nations General Assembly has declared since 1992 the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, according to resolution 47/3, which aims to promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all areas of society and development, as well as raise awareness of their situation in all aspects of political, social, economic, and cultural life.

Sofis Solutions contributes to improving the quality of life of people through the projects it develops; one example is the Information System for Salvadoran Educational Management (SIGES), a system implemented in the Ministry of Education of El Salvador (MINED) that simplifies the collection and monitoring of data from the national education system, thereby improving not only the student community but also the work of teachers.

Alejandrina Preza contributes to Salvadoran society from a classroom surrounded by children attending third grade of basic education. Every day she travels 27.4 kilometers from her residence to arrive punctually at her workplace located in the San Miguelito neighborhood of San Salvador. She makes this journey accompanied by her 63-year-old father and sometimes her 61-year-old mother, since Alejandrina is a teacher who is totally blind, which does not prevent her from teaching with great vocation.

She comments that she was diagnosed with congenital cataracts from her early education until finishing high school. "I did it preserving some residual vision with only one eye and using glasses, and in this way, I managed to complete high school. In 2002, I was diagnosed with glaucoma and began my rehabilitation process, learning the Braille method from scratch, activities for daily living, and the use of a cane to orient and move around. In 2005, I obtained a scholarship from the Ministry of Education (MINED) where I earned my degree as a Social Sciences Teacher."

Alejandrina mentions that since she was a child, she knew her vocation was teaching, as she used to play with dolls to whom she gave lessons. "My first day of class was at a public educational center located in Lourdes, La Libertad department… The students were quiet, waiting for my reaction to them, and little by little I managed to identify the students by their voice timbre. Later, the opportunity arose to work at the Eugenia Viuda de Dueñas School for the Blind, San Miguelito neighborhood, San Salvador, where to this date I teach full-time."

Another case of vocation for teaching is Oscar Bonilla, who has been a teacher for 6 years at the Eugenia Viuda de Dueñas School for the Blind. He comments that his training was at the same educational center and decided to become a teacher because he knows all the difficulties experienced during his academic formation years, both in terms of equipment, support, and laws that back him up.

"I always wanted to be a teacher and support with my knowledge in the area of blindness; this is how my vocation for this profession was born," says Oscar Bonilla.

Oscar is an independent person who, despite fear but with great perseverance, decided to travel independently day by day on the collective transport route 9 from the municipality of Soyapango to his educational center to teach his classes. "I was 9 years old when I learned to walk alone in downtown San Salvador and get to my study center independently; I thank my blind teacher for teaching me to be independent and giving me a life lesson."

These visually impaired teachers work dependently with the Information System for Salvadoran Educational Management (SIGES), mentioning that their disability is not an impediment to working with technologies in this digital age; rather, it is a challenge to improve the quality of their work and demonstrate to society all that they can accomplish when provided with resources and inclusion.