It's a newer and brighter day for the students at the Salvation Army's Erin H. Gilmour School for the Blind.  After months of renovations to the Salvation Army's headquarters on Mackey Street a permanent facility on Ivanhoe Road has recently been established for the 18 blind and visually impaired students attending the institute and the good news does not end there.  The school recently received five new desktop computers from Scotiabank, which answered the wish of school administrators as they had been wishing for new computers for the students for quite a while.
For 15-year-old Ashley Deleveaux, it was a dream come true when she found out she would be working with new computers.
"I was really glad to hear we would be using new computers that were donated to the school.  I have a computer at home but I don't have the program I need to use it as well as I should.  The school computers have the JAWS (Job Access for Windows and Speech) that helps me by reading to me from the screen.  It is really helping me with my classes and it's good that they don't have any viruses or problems which made the old computers hard to use.  I'm really happy," she said.
The excited Deleveaux says it made her day knowing that keeping up in school would be made a little easier with the new computers.
Fourteen-year-old Letieka Minnis was happy for the computers which she says will make her life in school easier.  The eighth grader says the new computers will allow her to do her research for classes better.
"I'm happy for the computers because now I can really use the Internet and do what regular people can do.  Although we had old computers these ones are a lot better," said Minnis.
Lester Ferguson, district commander of the Salvation Army in The Bahamas says blessings always come when you need them the most and after years of wanting to provide students with up-to-date computers it finally came to fruition.  He says before the donation by Scotiabank the Salvation Army was struggling to ensure the students had what they needed.
"Many things we do have that are essential to the school are old and in need of repair or just need to be replaced.  We keep the school functioning heavily via donations and a stipend from the Ministry of Education so when opportunities like this come along it is just a really good thing.  Having computers is very important for our particular students because while there are books in Braille their ability to manually research for their classes is still limited. Before the donation we were working with older models for about seven years. When we originally got the desktops they weren't new but were good for the students for the time being.  Now, after so long, they are working very slowly and a much newer version of JAWS -- the special program that reads the computer screen to the blind so they can operate a computer -- is much needed.  So really we are beyond elated right now to at least have new computers."
The school was also given a $5,000 check by Scotiabank which Ferguson says will be used to buy a new embosser -- a machine that scans ordinary text in books and converts it to Braille so the children can read them on their own.
The Salvation Army's Erin H. Gilmour School for the Blind was established in 1946 due to a Salvation Army officer proficient in Braille teaching a visually impaired man how to read it as well.  From this humble beginning the school has moved from being an adult-focused program to an institute that caters to students as young as five years old, up to those in high school.  The primary focus of the school today is to produce students who can integrate into everyday society despite their disability and the best way to assist them in this venture is to ensure they have a good foundation, says Ferguson.
Elma Garraway, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education, said the computer donation was a great opportunity for the students to achieve even more academically.  She encouraged them to take advantage of everything, continue to strive for excellence and shine just as brightly, if not more so than their peers as they have always done.
"This year in the Ministry of Education we are focusing on fostering competence, character and citizenship for excellence in education," said Garraway.  "We want our children to be competent in the knowledge that is required of them to know at every grade level.  We know the challenge it is for our students at this school to achieve that knowledge, so we are glad that [this] gift will assist them in not only achieving the standard we have set but even beyond."

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian