Pioneering blind educator Ingrid Peters wants more to be done for visually impaired children

Ingrid Peters
Ingrid Peters

Retired and rehired special education teacher extraordinaire Ingrid Daphne Peters nee Waithe, 66, was earlier this month inducted into the Women and Gender Equality Commission’s inaugural Women’s Hall of Fame for her pioneering role in integrating blind and visually impaired students into the mainstream education system, enabling them to write the Caribbean Examinations Council’s (CXC) examinations.

Peters, who was inducted along with many outstanding Guyanese women including the late President Janet Jagan and Viola Burnham, to mark this year’s International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, is still lobbying the government to do more for the blind and visually impaired.

Retired in 2013 and rehired in 2014 to teach braille, Peters is approaching 50 years of teaching in both special education and in the mainstream education system. “It is a milestone I’m hoping to achieve with God’s grace. That would make it 31 years in special education and 16 years in the regular schools,” she told the Sunday Stabroek at the Unit for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Albert Street, Queenstown, Georgetown.