You can’t see. It’s dark. But you can tell what people are doing by listening to the sounds around you. Clinking. Someone’s cooking, you can smell it now. Your stomach rumbles. You’re hiding. You’re not sure why. But it’s been dark and you’ve been hiding for as long as you can remember. Footsteps. People are walking towards the door — you can hear them talking now. No-one can hear them apart from you, so you feel your way into the hallway. Then, you open the door.

Annie didn’t know how to shout. When she was found, she couldn’t speak — she had never learnt how. Annie can’t see, and she also grew up with parents who can’t hear. When Annie was found she was hungry. She was always the last to be fed. She had never been to school. Because she is blind. Living in Congo, a country with one of the world’s poorest populations, where there is very limited support for people with disabilities, her situation was an incredibly difficult one.

Annie’s parents hid her because of the stigma attached to blindness in Congo. Many see people who are blind as completely incompetent; others see them as being a curse on their families. The result is children who cannot see being denied education and being excluded from society. Annie’s parents loved her. But they didn’t understand that she was just as precious as any other child.

Jean believes his blindness is for God’s glory. “It’s not a disability, it’s a divine mission,” he says. “If I weren’t blind, I wouldn’t have looked after these children who need support.” Children like Annie. Children who are now taught and provided with pastoral care at Midibart school.

Jean is determined to ensure the children at his school have access to the opportunities they deserve. “Children who can’t see are capable of studying like any other child,” Jean says. “They just need the right support.”

There is hope for Annie. As Braille is the only way for children who are blind to get a good education, BMS has supplied the 130 children at Midibart school with a set of Braille typewriters. These devices speed up the process of writing in Braille, previously done on a Braille slate (a block of plastic with holes in placed on a piece of paper, which Braille markings are then punched through). The long-term aim is to ensure children who are blind have as much opportunity to pursue their dreams as children who can see.

Life is still difficult. Midibart school helps to integrate children like Annie into society and back into families who may have rejected them — but there is still a stigma attached to blindness. Students have gone on to study subjects like journalism and law, but they still can’t get job afterwards.

Annie can’t see. But she can speak well, and read and write in Braille. She’s no longer the last to be fed. Some in her society expect her to achieve nothing, but she’s surrounded by people supporting her dreams. Thanks to the work that began with BMS all those years ago, she knows the next time she needs to shout, she’ll be heard.