PhD graduate breaks ceiling for people with disabilities

Dar/Mwanza. Born at Muyama Village, Kasulu District in Kigoma Region as the sixth child in a family of eight, Celestine Karuhawe, 54, a visually impaired scholar, has proved that disability is not inability.

Born in good health and with complete eyesight, the fresh holder of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree began to experience eye problems when he was four years old. Later, health experts discovered that he had suffered glaucoma (a condition of increased pressure within the eyeball, causing gradual loss of sight).

Fascinatingly, Dr Karuhawe was one of more than 600 graduates at the 52nd graduation ceremony of the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) last week where he was conferred with a PhD in Education at Mlimani City Hall.

Dr Karuhawe’s success has broken the ceiling as he has now become one of the few individuals with disabilities who have overcme all odds to achieve their goals in life.

Oftentimes, those having similar challenges to his tend to give up on the way, some even without having any physical challenges.

Of the eight children, he was the only one whose sight had a challenge, but the situation did not deter his dream which he has taken to completion, thus becoming the only sibling in the family to reach the peak level of education.

Having studied at Kabanga Primary School (special for the blind), Dr Karuhawe went to Mpwapwa Secondary School (Integrated school) in Dodoma Region where he studied from his O-Levels.

He joined Mzumbe Secondary School in Morogoro for his A-Levels before going further to obtain his first to third degree at UDSM later along.

“Disability is costly. I’m employed and I get paid the same as other employees, however, I use part of my salary to hire someone to help me read my students’ work while going through and correcting their work,” reveals Dr Karuhawe who is a lecturer at Saint Augustine University of Tanzania (Saut) in Mwanza, a job he has held from 2006.

According to the scholar, he got to the milestone because from a young age he wanted to study all the degrees and finish.

In an exclusive interview with The Citizen, Dr Karuhawe mentions financial resources, time and manpower as some of the challenges affecting the efforts of people with disabilities who try to achieve their goals in life.

“My PhD is a living example. It was really stressful, it should not have taken me seven years to graduate, but my disability and in fact college procedures were among the reasons why I graduated after seven years instead of three or four like others,” says Dr Karuhawe, who joined the PhD programme in 2015.

He says despite UDSM having a system that assists blind students by employing special staff to read books and placing the notes on a computer with audio system, disputes among professors on student’s publications delays students’ graduation.

“Sometimes students are directed to correct some things in their publications, but when they do so and re-submit the work, they are asked to return what they had corrected; this also delays student’s journery towards graduation,” notes the husband and father of four.

Apart from his wife, Ms Beatrice and his children, Devotha, Renata, Remidius and Castus who were very supportive and encouraging, Dr Karuhawe is grateful to Saut management for granting him paid leave and seeking a loan on his behalf from the Higher Education Student’s Board (HESLB).

“It was not an easy task to study and graduate at the age of 54 as I was a husband, a father and head of the family,” he explains.

He says that he had to be patient because he was studying with students who were physically okay, taught by lecturers who were also visually alright so he found himself forced to read blindly in the presence of sighted people.

“So, there was a time when I was wondering how the lecturer teaches using pictorial examples regardless of the type of students he has in the lecture room. I thought these lecturers could realise and devise ways to handle both students equally, but sometimes it wasn’t the case,” he notes.

“Our reading is done using materials that are different from those used by others. Our writings are not written in the books we read. So in this case we have to find an alternative ways to make it easier for ourselves,” he says.

The other challenge he noted was studying while the family depended on him, as he had to take care of them so his children could also continue their studies without getting stuck.

He explains that many teachers had been teaching using pictures regardless of whether he was present in the classroom, which forced him to always try to find a picture of what the teacher or lecturer was saying, because that kind of teaching was to the benefit of his classmates.

“For example, a teacher tells students, if you put this here you can see something happen. Now for those of us who do not see where it is, it becomes difficult,” he says.

He advises other disabled and visually impaired people when they face various challenges as it is a part of life, to think about how they would cope no matter the obstacles.

“People with disabilities should not get discouraged, but they should always look for ways to deal with various challenges by designing everything possible to cope with the difficult life that comes their way because disability is not always an inability,” he says.

But he also wants the government to do everything it can to help people with disabilities because when they get help their environment becomes better and they become role models to others.

Even though Dr Karuhawe is blind, his students are ordinary, thus the challenge he faces is the problem of proofreading and reading assignments written by his students.

As a result, he is forced to hire a reader and also devises a way to help him get the right results of his students. He notes another setback is lack of necessary equipment needed to enable him to do his job properly.

For her part, his daughter, who is a pharmacy student at St John’s University, Ms Devota Karuhawe thanked God for letting her father set a memorable example by accomplishing the dream of his life, acknowledging that it was a motive to her and other siblings.

“Our father’s education and graduation is an inspiration to us, it motivates us a lot. We have no option but to try and follow his steps although it would not be a walk in the park,” she told The Citizen in an interview.

Mr Hussein Hussein who is a teacher at Mpwampwa Secondary School where Dr Karuhawe studied told The Citizen over the phone that the scholar’s achievement should be a reason for the government to invest more in people with disabilities, especially in schools through equipment and teachers.

“This has been our long-term prayer, that we get students who will lead the authorities to increase efforts in serving people with disabilities, especially students. We do not have enough teachers and equipment and this is the biggest challenge,” he noted.