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Accessibility

Tag Archives: Advocacy

  1. Say It Loud! I’m Blind and I’m Proud.

    July 28, 2021 - By Lachi

    You know that feeling you get after winning a video game on the hardest difficulty level, or baking the perfect brownies on your first try without instructions, or beating your frenemy in a race after you’ve given them a ten-second head-start? That feeling is called pride, a pride sparked from determination, and a determination sparked from a healthy self-worth. Giving society all the cheat codes and a ten-second head-start and still winning – that’s the pride I get to feel every single day as a brown-skinned blind woman. Hi, I’m…

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  2. What is Art Worth to a Blind Painter?

    July 14, 2021 - By Kimberley Burrows

    It is often said that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but what is art worth to a blind painter? I’m Kimberley and I was born prematurely with underdeveloped optic nerves and congenital cataracts that were overlooked until I was four years old. I lived with severe sight-impairment, with only a small visual field in my left eye, until I went blind in 2018 through double retinal detachment. I now suffer with ongoing high pressures in both eyes, with frequent ocular migraines, and have a small shard of light…

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  3. Evolution and Inclusive Language: Creating a New Term for Visual Disabilities

    June 16, 2021 - By Brian Switzer

    The terms we use carry with them significance. They can denote power and strength, or they can also denote weakness and other negative biases.  As a society, we have become more aware of the power of language when describing people who may identify in ways that are marginalized. Even better, we have been adopting language created by those people themselves.  I am a DeafBlind person. This is just one aspect of who I am – I’m also a husband and soon-to-be dad, a graduate student, an instructor at Perkins School…

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  4. Dance Beyond Boundaries

    June 2, 2021 - By Samantha Ambrico-Custer

    I open my eyes but see nothing. I feel the smooth marley floor under my feet and gently move my toe over the tactile marker on the ground. The music begins to play, and light begins to flood my field of vision. For a moment, I am disoriented. I take a few steadying breaths and begin to move. I trust my body. I trust my knowledge of the stage. I allow my proprioceptive instincts to carry me; these instincts let me know how far and which direction I move. With…

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  5. Action Is the Antidote: Reviving Hope in Hard Times

    April 7, 2021 - By Revey Hertzler

    My word for 2021 was heal. 2020’s was connect. Instead of resolutions, every New Year’s Day I choose a verb to live by for the year. After an isolating pandemic and inherited retinal disease (IRD) diagnosis, both words seem wildly ironic. Last month – weeks after losing my dad unexpectedly – I was diagnosed with a rare inherited retinal disease called Stargardt’s. Affecting roughly one in 10,000 people, Stargardt’s causes progressive vision loss and eventually blindness. This disease, like many others, is the result of a genetic mutation. There was…

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  6. See Us: a Project 10 Years in the Making

    March 24, 2021 - By Jon Marin

    I’m Jon Marin, author of the soon-to-be-released book See Us, a photographic journey that follows six visually impaired young adults as they balance their lives among work, home, and school in New York City. I had the pleasure of connecting with these students during their time at Career Discovery Project, the program I lead at City Access New York. Building a career program that works for students When I was informed that I would take over the Career Discovery Project in 2014, I was petrified. Too many negative thoughts were…

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  7. A Mom, Memes and an Innovative Way to Raise Money for Assistive Tech

    March 10, 2021 - By Jolandi Gevers

    Braille literacy is so important to visually impaired kids and yet it can be prohibitively expensive to get books in braille. This is a real problem for my two bookworms Hannah (10) and Daniel (7). They were born with Leber’s congenital amaurosis and therefore blind from birth. Not having the same access to books as other children is a real frustration for Hannah especially. She now has grand plans to open a Braille bookstore in the nearby mall so that kids and people like her can get access to Braille…

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  8. My Vision for a Better Boston

    February 24, 2021 - By Alex Gray, Candidate for At-Large Boston City Council

    When I was really young, I knew I was going to grow up to be the next great Boston sports athlete. I was thinking Mo Vaughn or Drew Bledsoe. Mind you, this was back when we loved our teams but they never won anything. My dreams changed when I was eight years old and I began to lose my vision. It started in my left eye, then moved to my right. By the time I reached middle school, my dream of playing professional sports came to a sharp end. For…

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  9. Breaking Down Barriers to Become a Blind Scientist

    February 8, 2021 - By Mona Minkara, Ph.D.

    I have always been so curious about how the world works. I remember I had a keen mind for deduction even when I was a young kid, listening to audiobooks of Sherlock Holmes. The detective said he could tell the height of a person by listening to his or her footsteps. I became more inspired and more interested in science by watching The Magic School Bus and Bill Nye the Science Guy and then by the work of Marie Curie and my mentors throughout my journeys. I loved all I…

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  10. Attention and Action: My Campaign to #EndAbleism

    January 13, 2021 - By Olivia Karp

    My name is Olivia, and I’m the founder of Attention and Action, an international movement to raise awareness around the barriers and inequalities people with disabilities face in society. This week, from January 11th to the 16th, we are running a campaign called #EndAbleism to raise awareness about how ableism affects people with disabilities, spark discussion and put an end to it. #EndAbleism is open to all ages – we want to get people talking about ableism and to work toward collective action to end it. We’re asking participants to…

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