For many people living with blindness in Peru, opportunities for both education and stable employment remain severely limited, often due to a combination of social stigma and a lack of accessible training programs suited to their needs. Without targeted vocational options, blind individuals frequently face chronic underemployment despite having significant untapped skill and potential.
Maryknoll supports the House of Bartimaeus in Lima, a distinctive training center that empowers blind and visually impaired individuals through professional education in massage therapy, reflexology, and shiatsu, fields in which heightened tactile sensitivity can become a genuine professional advantage rather than a limitation. Courses are taught by licensed blind instructors, who serve simultaneously as educators and as living examples of what is professionally possible.
This project reflects the Catholic Social Teaching principle of the Dignity of Work, affirming that blindness is not an obstacle to meaningful, skilled employment but, in this field, can become a genuine professional strength. It also embodies Maryknoll’s charism of forming people for self-sufficiency rather than dependency, equipping graduates with a marketable trade and the dignity that comes from providing for themselves through their own expertise.
Gifts to this project support professional training in massage therapy, reflexology, and shiatsu for blind and visually impaired individuals in Lima, creating pathways to meaningful employment and genuine independence.
