Konica Minolta South Africa assists autistic students with donation

5 February 2009

Konica Minolta South Africa’s Port Elizabeth branch recently donated a Di470 digital colour photocopier to the Quest School for Learners with Autism in order to assist in skills development for the school’s pupils.

According to Joan Jorritsma, principal of the Quest School for Learners with Autism, the only school for learners with autism in the Eastern Cape, many of the children in attendance have severe barriers to learning and find it extremely difficult to find jobs when they reach school leaving age.

"People with autism struggle to speak or even understand the verbal word, they cannot fully interpret other people’s emotions, social behaviours and the complexity of social relationships and display a limited range of imaginative activities. However, because they are so strongly bound by rigid thought patterns and behaviours, they tend to do well with repeated activity.

"Based on this, Konica Minolta South Africa’s donation of this photocopying machine will give us the opportunity to train some of our students to use it effectively, hopefully providing them with some of the necessary skills needed to be employed in the future.

"So few people are aware of the great difficulties faced by our learners and Konica Minolta South Africa’s support will greatly assist us in moving forward," she adds.

"Our main aim with this donation was to assist the Quest School in developing its senior children by preparing them for printing work type environments once they exit schooling," explains Charl Vogel, sales manager, Konica Minolta South Africa Port Elizabeth branch. "In addition, they now have a device that affords them better presentation material for their day-to-day teaching requirements."