To help people with vision impairment in their day-to-day movement, students from Regina Pacis Secondary School in Onitsha, Anambra State, have created ‘Smart Sticks’ that can detect obstacles no less than 120 centimetres away.
The Smart Sticks were unveiled during the visit of Valerian Okeke, the Metropolitan Archbishop of the Onitsha Diocese, to the school and were distributed to over 20 persons with vision impairment in attendance.
Reverend Okeke hailed the students for their achievement, saying he is proud of what this generation is producing.
The Youth Coordinator for the Nigeria Association of the Blind or NAB, Anambra State, Chibuzor Obierika, said at the launch of the product that the invention is an improved version of a previous one which could only sense obstacles horizontally.
“The Smart Sticks can now sense objects from an angle of elevation and an angle of depression,” she said.
Some individuals with vision impairment reviewed the Smart Sticks during the event to demonstrate the product’s effectiveness. One member of the community said, “I feel very much elated. In today’s society, visually impaired people have gone past the era of being perceived as being incapable of contributing to societal development. These Smart Sticks would go a long way in helping them live a life of independence,” he said.
