THE Guyana Council of Organisations for Persons with Disabilities (GCOPD) has received a financial donation from Tropical Shipping Company that will enable students with disabilities to use certain modern equipment during their studies.

The money, received last December 24, will be used to procure modern equipment and the relevant applications to enable students with disabilities attending the University of Guyana (UG) and the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) to access information in an appropriate format, conduct research, and write their exams.

Presently GCOPD is in the process of establishing a ‘Resource Unit’ to enhance the learning experience of UG and CPCE students with disabilities.

Disability rights advocate and GCOPD Programme Co-coordinator Ganesh Singh thanked Tropical Shipping for its timely donation and highlighted the challenges students with disabilities face daily.

Singh, a current student with a vision disability of UG who has been attending UG for the past six years, reading for various degrees, pointed out that the equipment and applications will significantly mitigate the effects of the challenges.
Singh said he has first-hand experience of the challenges that tertiary students with disabilities continue to face.

Country Manager of Tropical Shipping Glenis Hodge said the company was happy to play a role in enhancing the learning environment of persons with disabilities, as part of the company’s corporate social responsibility.

Among the items to be purchased are a few Apple IPads with Optical Character Recognition (OCR) applications, to convert printed text into a digitally accessible format; a few laptops and a 3D printer to produce materials in three-dimension.

Tropical Shipping is a shipping and logistics company with the transit time of seven days from Florida to Guyana. Tropical also operates complete shipping services to and from Canada and across the Caribbean.

GCOPD is the umbrella body for all Disabled People Organisations (DPOs) in Guyana. At present, GCOPD has education as one of the organisation’s priority areas.