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Speech of Sao Mai center in the Work chances conference for the blinds
Da Nang
September 9th 2008
Held by Vietnam Blind Association
Mr. Dang Hoai Phuc/Director
Sao Mai Computer Center for the Blind
4/12B Van Chung st. ward 13 distric Tan Binh, Ho Chi Minh city
Phone: +84 8 8495069 - Fax: +84 8 2938300
Website: www.saomaicenter.org

1. Introduction

As you know, Informatics today has been developing very widely over the world, in almost fields and it is confirmed that Informatics is one of the most useful tools. Un-excludingly, Informatics today is also a tool regarded as the best and most useful tool for the blinds. With the help of Informatics, the blinds has being little by little shorten the distance from the society about education level and work chances. The eyes is the extremely important body part, it helps us record the outside information/objects and the most important part is till the brain. And the blind has the thinking ability as well as brain capability developed completely normal.Hence, there are some blinds said, technology in general and Informatics in specific has been  being their second eyes, help them to operate partly basic functions of the real eyes. I mention about that because i want to confirm that technology has help the blinds get many chances to develop himself and contribute to the society. And this also help them to quickly re-intergrate into the society. In this speech, i would like to share my ideas about work chances in the help of Informatics and suggestions remain problems.
 
2. General view of Informatics apply of Vietnamese visual impairments

The supporting technology on the world has been developed and used widely since late 1970s, 20th century. However, it has just been reached and applied in Vietnam commonly in late 1990s (year 1998, 1999). Nowaday, because of its benefit, Informatics has been quickly applied by Vietnamese blinds also have many projects to forward the development of Informatics. Two main fields which the organizations put their focus on are education and work. Both 2 fields play very important roles. The blinds can not have an independent, intergrated life if they dont have works. And if they dont have skills, knowledge, abilities,... then their chance to get a job equally become very difficult. This is one of the big difficulties in Vietnam. The level of Vietnamese blinds are still low. However, there has been many effort in the educational field for the blinds; day by day there are many blinds in colleges/universities in Vietnam. So we must think of the supporting tools to help them to get suitable jobs equally.
Today there are many Vietnamese blinds apply Informatics in their work. But, the applied fields are sill limited in their offices, places they had been worked before they used Informatics. Besides, there are the blinds, with Informatics and specialist skills, have jobs in some insurance companies, phone-teller companies. There are also some open their own bussiness providing Informatics relating services. But the number of such working blinds is very small, as far as i know, it is only up to ten. In spite of the very small number, it still confirm that the work chances for blinds who have Informatics skill is definitely possible.

Talking about the chances blinds get jobs in Informatics, it is still at begining stage in Vietnam. The reason is currently almost the organizations for the blinds are concentrating on the Informatics training and applying programs.While the jobs such as network administration, programmers, technicians ... need the skills higher than they can satisfy. That is one reason, and the other reason, in my opinion, more difficult, is the rejection of the Informatics centers/schools to the blinds while the organizations for the visual impairments can not meet all the blinds' need to study at a time. So, the interference of Gorvement needs to be stronger.

If you had a chances to visit  the associations/schools/centers/facilities for the blinds, you can see that most of the blinds use Infomatics in their work. However, currently it is still popular in big cities like Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Da Nang, Hue, Thanh Hoa... This is a signal and a provement for the possibility of training programs/projects to make more jobs for the blinds with Informatics skills.

3. The possible jobs with Informatics

Here by, i want to discuss some information about jobs that, in my opinion, the blinds can get with the help of Informatic, based on the current conditions in Vietnam. Please note that, these are not the only jobs the blind can do but these are just considered in the developement level of Vietnam society today.

I can divide it into some careers from my own point of view:

Information Services:
This job includes activities such as providing information, consulting, collecting materials, writing... Some jobs you can see in reality like the Information center 1080, law consult, collect information and make report for some companies. Most of these systems use computers to administrate and operate. So the blinds no doubt can reach and participate in those fields.

Converting/Translation:
There are many need and work to convert materials between formats, like from sound to text and vice versa. Beside, translation/translator is also very capable to the blinds. With Informatics, the supporting tools in converting/translation totally can help the blinds work not less easily than their bright eyes colleagues.

Music:
We can say there are many blind musicians successful in and outside of the country. As you know, music has many classes such as becoming performance artists, teching... Informatics will open more work chances for the blinds such as mixers, sound processing... Beside, it will also improve their current work like teaching and performance. They can easily compose and share with colleagues, provide lessons bright eyes students instead of using a distinct braille system. That is this distinct that reduce the social integration if there is not any other communication method.
Office:
They totally can administrate and do the office work through computers like customer care services, accountants, printing...
Informatics:
As i have presented in part 2, about the current condition in Vietnam, there are still problems must be solved. However, these are fields the blinds completely can get jobs.
The works like programing, system admin, technical support..
The above is just general ideas about careers the blinds can easily find jobs with Informatics skills in Vietnam nowaday. There are many other jobs blinds can do, in which Informatics will be their second eyes, which subtitues their first eyes has been lost. I would like to share a saying about jobs for the blinds, that i like the best: "Do not ask what they can do but do ask how they do that".

Translated by: Vu Anh Dung