Disability will never stop my dream career: Confidence Kakri

TWENTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD Confidence Kakri is bold, brilliant and beautiful. Her dream was to become a chartered accountant and so she studied towards that objective when she was a student of Ola SHS in Ho in the Volta Region. 

That dream was, however, cut short when she became visually impaired soon after writing her WASSCE in 2020. Several visits to the ophthalmologist at the Ho Teaching Hospital could not help restore Miss Kakri’s eyesight.

Strong conviction With a strong conviction that disability is not inability, and inspired by her first name, Confidence has now enrolled at the E. P. Church New Horizon School for the Blind in Ho to study Braille before improving on her WASSCE grades to pursue a new dream career. Braille is a form of written language for the visually impaired in which characters are represented by patterns of raised dots that are felt with the fingertips.

In a chat with Miss Kakri at Dzolo-Kpuita in the Volta Region recently, she said she might not be able to pursue the programme in accountancy anymore due to her condition. “I will decide on what to do after the Braille course,” she told this reporter. Her mother, Ms Exornam Kakri, who is a petty trader at Akoviefe near Dzolo-Kpuita, had taken a firm stance to provide her daughter with whatever she would need to further her education. But in a turn of events, she is also losing her eyesight now. Miss Kakri’s younger sister is also plagued with multiple disabilities and cannot help her effectively take care of the home.

Touching scene
It was a touching scene when the partially visually impaired mother led her visually impaired daughter to the premises of the Ho West District Assembly last week Friday to receive an amount of GH¢ 1,000 in aid of her Braille studies. The District Chief Executive (DCE),
Mr Ernest Victor Apau, gave an assurance that Miss Kakri would benefit from further support to enable her to complete the Braille course, as well as further studies.

“We are touched by Confidence’s confidence and we will surely support her to attain her dream career,” the DCE pledged. Apart from the Ho West District Assembly and the Department of Social Welfare and Community Development, the MP for Ho West, Mr Kwesi Bedzra, is also
supporting her with resources for the Braille course.

According to the District Director of Social Welfare, Mr Roland Kumfo, the young lady’s problem started as blurred vision during the WASSCE, but she wrote the papers in that condition with the hope of having the problem fixed after the examinations. It is hoped that some organisations, corporate bodies and public-spirited individuals would also help the young lady in various ways to further her education.