[NFBofSC] FW: [Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, February 2023

[Steve Cook]

Steve Cook

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National Association of Guide Dog Users Board Member

President of the Computer Science & Technology Division of the National
Federation of the Blind of SC

1st Vice President of the Columbia chapter of the National Federation of the
Blind of SC

1st Vice President of the SC Association of Guide Dog Users Division

 

From: brl-monitor-bounces at nfbcal.org <brl-monitor-bounces at nfbcal.org> On
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Subject: [Brl-monitor] The Braille Monitor, February 2023

 


The Braille Monitor, February 2023


BRAILLE MONITOR


Vol. 66, No. 2 February 2023

Gary Wunder, Editor

Distributed by email, in inkprint, in Braille, and on USB flash drive, by
the

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

Mark Riccobono, President

telephone: 410-659-9314

email address: nfb at nfb.org <mailto:nfb at nfb.org> 

website address: http://www.nfb.org

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Letters to the President, address changes, subscription requests, and orders
for NFB literature should be sent to the national office. Articles for the
Monitor and letters to the editor may also be sent to the national office or
may be emailed to gwunder at nfb.org <mailto:gwunder at nfb.org> .

Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about forty dollars per year.
Members are invited, and nonmembers are requested, to cover the subscription
cost. Donations should be made payable to National Federation of the Blind
and sent to:

National Federation of the Blind

200 East Wells Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21230-4998

THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND KNOWS THAT BLINDNESS IS NOT THE
CHARACTERISTIC THAT DEFINES YOU OR YOUR FUTURE. EVERY DAY WE RAISE THE
EXPECTATIONS OF BLIND PEOPLE, BECAUSE LOW EXPECTATIONS CREATE OBSTACLES
BETWEEN BLIND PEOPLE AND OUR DREAMS. YOU CAN LIVE THE LIFE YOU WANT;
BLINDNESS IS NOT WHAT HOLDS YOU BACK. THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND-IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR
OURSELVES.

ISSN 0006-8829

C 2022 by the National Federation of the Blind

Each issue is recorded on a thumb drive (also called a memory stick or USB
flash drive). You can read this audio edition using a computer or a National
Library Service digital player. The NLS machine has two slots-the familiar
book-cartridge slot just above the retractable carrying handle and a second
slot located on the right side near the headphone jack. This smaller slot is
used to play thumb drives. Remove the protective rubber pad covering this
slot and insert the thumb drive. It will insert only in one position. If you
encounter resistance, flip the drive over and try again. (Note: If the
cartridge slot is not empty when you insert the thumb drive, the digital
player will ignore the thumb drive.) Once the thumb drive is inserted, the
player buttons will function as usual for reading digital materials. If you
remove the thumb drive to use the player for cartridges, when you insert it
again, reading should resume at the point you stopped.

You can transfer the recording of each issue from the thumb drive to your
computer or preserve it on the thumb drive. However, because thumb drives
can be used hundreds of times, we would appreciate their return in order to
stretch our funding. Please use the return envelope enclosed with the drive
when you return the device.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Hilton Americas-Houston Convention Center Hotel]


Convention Bulletin 2023


There are plenty of reasons one might travel to Houston, Texas, the fourth
most populous city in the United States. The city's vibrant arts scene
boasts the largest concentration of theater seats outside of New York City.
And no Houston resident would let a visitor forget that the city is home to
the 2022 World Series Champion Houston Astros. There is little question that
Houston has a great deal going for it. The city's real draw, however, is
that it will play host to the National Federation of the Blind's 2023
National Convention.

It has now been more than fifty years since the largest gathering of the
organized blind last convened in Houston, Texas, and our return in 2023 will
be an event not to be missed. The Hilton Americas-Houston hotel (1600 Lamar
Street, Houston, TX 77010) will serve as our convention headquarters hotel.
Situated in the heart of downtown Houston across the street from the
beautiful twelve-acre Discovery Green Park, the Hilton Americas is an ideal
location for our annual event. Ballrooms, breakout space, and sleeping rooms
are all stacked in the same tower housed on a single city block, simplifying
navigation and minimizing travel distances. In-room internet is
complimentary to all attendees as is access to the health club and swimming
pool on the 22nd floor. There are several dining options on the hotel's
lobby level (including a Starbucks for those of you requiring a caffeine
fix) and many more choices within easy walking distance from the Hilton's
front door.

The nightly rate at the Hilton Americas-Houston is $119 for singles,
doubles, triples, and quads. In addition, the sales tax rate is 8.25
percent, and the hotel occupancy tax rate is 17 percent. To book your room
for the 2023 convention, call 1-800-236-2905 after January 1 and ask for the
"NFB Convention" block. For each room, the hotel will take a deposit of the
first night's room rate and taxes and will require a credit card or a
personal check. If you use a credit card, the deposit will be charged
against your card immediately. If a reservation is cancelled before
Thursday, June 1, 2023, half of the deposit will be returned. Otherwise
refunds will not be made.

We have also secured overflow space at the wonderful Marriott Marquis
Houston. The Marriott is only a three-block walk directly across Discovery
Green, or attendees can walk entirely indoors through the George R. Brown
Convention Center, connecting both hotels on the second level. You will find
many of the same amenities at the Marriott as well as a Texas-shaped lazy
river pool. The room rate at the Marriott Marquis is also $119 per night for
singles, doubles, triples, and quads. To book a room, call 1-877-622-3056
after January 1. Again, ask for the "NFB Convention" block. Similarly, the
same deposit and cancellation policies apply.

The 2023 convention of the National Federation of the Blind will be a truly
exciting and memorable event, with an unparalleled program and rededication
to the goals and work of our movement. A wide range of seminars for parents
of blind children, technology enthusiasts, job seekers, and other groups
will kick the week off on Saturday, July 1. Convention registration and
registration packet pick-up will also open on Saturday. Breakout sessions
continue on Sunday along with committee meetings. Monday, July 3, will kick
off with the annual meeting, open to all, of the Board of Directors of the
National Federation of the Blind. National division meetings will follow the
board meeting that afternoon and evening. General convention sessions will
begin on Tuesday, July 4, and continue through the afternoon of Thursday,
July 6. Convention ends on a high note with the banquet Thursday evening so
be sure to pack your fancy clothes. The fall of the gavel at the close of
banquet will signal convention's adjournment.

Remember that, as usual, we need door prizes from state affiliates, local
chapters, and individuals. Once again, prizes should be small in size but
large in value. Cash, of course, is always appropriate and welcome. As a
rule, we ask that prizes of all kinds have a value of at least $25 and not
include alcohol. Drawings will occur steadily throughout the convention
sessions, and you can anticipate a Texas-sized grand prize to be drawn at
the banquet. You may bring door prizes with you to convention or send them
in advance to the National Federation of the Blind of Texas at 1600 E
Highway 6, Suite 215, Alvin, TX 77511.

The best collection of exhibits featuring new technology; meetings of our
special interest groups, committees, and divisions; the most stimulating and
provocative program items of any meeting of the blind in the world; the
chance to renew friendships in our Federation family; and the unparalleled
opportunity to be where the real action is and where decisions are being
made-all of these mean you will not want to miss being a part of the 2023
National Convention. To assure yourself a room in the headquarters hotel at
convention rates, make your reservations early. We plan to see you in
Houston in July.

Vol. 66, No. 2 February 2023


Contents


Illustration: More Than an Emotionally Touching Case for Braille?

The Federation Loses a Longtime Leader and a Strong Advocate for Becoming
all One Can Be

by Gary Wunder

President's Message

by Mark Riccobono

Engineering a New Response: Transforming At-Home Testing through Partnership
with the Blind

by Jill Heemskerk

What You Should Know to Win Yourself a Scholarship

by Catherine Mendez

Who Are the Blind Who Lead the Blind: Those Elected in 2022

Saying Thank You and Encouraging Further Accessibility

by John Miller

Disability Intersections: Blindness and Autism

by Matt Langland

Allyship and Inclusivity

by Rishika Kartik

Touring and Facilities

by Ramona Walhof

Kenneth Jernigan Convention Scholarship

by Tracy Soforenko

The Journey of Braille: from the Hands of the Creator to Earth Orbit

by Marc Maurer

Reading to Succeed: How the Power of Braille Literacy Opened New Avenues for
Interpreting My World

by John Kalkanli

You Can Make a Difference

[PHOTO/CAPTION: A stack of documents in Braille represent ten weeks of work
by twenty-six educators enrolled in one of our Braille Classes.]


More Than an Emotionally Touching Case for Braille?


Braille is a code that enables us to read with our fingertips using a system
of six raised dots. It was created in 1824 by a French boy named Louis
Braille who was born on January 4, 1809. Today, Braille is used all over the
world in many languages.

Each year, we work to get Braille into the hands of more blind people.
January 4 marks World Braille Day in celebration of its creator, Louis
Braille. Every day, thousands of blind people use Braille for everything
from shopping lists to labels for canned goods, from reading novels to
solving math and scientific equations, from learning a piece of music to
composing one. In January 2022, Google launched their new domain opportunity
to promote special days and events for promoting a cause. We celebrated
World Braille Day with the new URL www.Braille.day <http://www.Braille.day>
. So what does proficient Braille look like?

Here is a stack of Braille that is forty-four inches tall from a recent
Braille One class of twenty-six educators learning Braille.

2,715.5 pages of Braille were completed by the participants in just ten
weeks.

Building Speed: Four participants went from knowing no Braille to reading
Braille-that's zero words per minute and at the end of ten weeks a minimum
of thirty words per minute. 

Beginning Braille Readers: Ranged from 30 to 44 words per minute.

Highest Speed: 149 words per minute (that was for one who was already a
Braille reader).

Reading Levels: In ten weeks, beginners went from reading simple words to
reading a fourth grade chapter book.

Lifelong Learners: Of the four Braille readers that were lifelong Braille
readers, they all four increased their reading speed between 17 wpm and 34
wpm.

Braille Rocks! Thank you to Casey Robertson Ed.S., NCUEB [National
Certification in Unified English Braille], for sharing this great work with
all of us.

[PHOTO CAPTION: Allen Harris, October 23, 1945 - August 10, 2022]


The Federation Loses a Longtime Leader and a Strong Advocate for Becoming
all One Can Be


by Gary Wunder

One of the benefits of being a part of the National Federation of the Blind
is getting to know some really special people. The man I write to honor is
in the top tier. He was a friend who enjoyed telling and hearing jokes,
teasing people he loved, and trying to uphold a sense of optimism in
everything he did. He had a family, a job, and lots of loyal friends. This
was exactly what I wanted in my life, and I never found a role model who was
easier to get to know.

Although I knew him long before, Allen was a mentor to me when I joined the
National Board of Directors, was a good sounding board as I tried to
navigate being state president, and was an inspiration to me as I studied
his history, his humanity, the way he changed people's lives, and the
perspectives he held on issues that went far beyond blindness. Whether we
talked about the state of the country, the future for blind people, the
rapidly changing technology that might leave us behind, or the challenges
involved in recruiting and keeping new people, my friend was always an
optimist. One of his favorite sayings was, "We'll figure it out."

Allen, a longtime high school wrestling coach, helped me root out and
eliminate my bias against coaches who became social studies teachers. In my
snobby opinion, they really wanted to be coaches and weren't very gifted
academically. I don't have any examples I can use to justify this
stereotype, but too often my ego has been nurtured at the expense of others
and, of course, I was studying the hard sciences. But Allen Harris had a
distinguished academic career, one that I could not easily dismiss.
Graduating Magna Cum Laude, talking history, sharing political views, and
revealing himself as a man of passion and compassion, Allen Harris replaced
my unhealthy bias with life-sustaining optimism and taught me a different
way to think and a caution about coming to premature and damaging
conclusions.

One of the things that fascinated me about the story of Allen Harris was his
desire to get a job. He said that he sent out more than two hundred resumes
and attended almost one hundred interviews before he got an offer. Part of
his life's work was to make it easier for other blind people who would
follow, but he also knew that there was a certain toughness required to be
blind and successful, and he believed that part of his job was being real
about that in teaching us how to be tough while not losing our kindness,
compassion, and gentleness.

All of those interviews resulted in a career that found him teaching for
decades in the public schools and then moving into the field of blindness
professionally. He worked as the assistant director of the agency for the
blind in New York and then as the director of the Iowa Department for the
Blind. In both jobs he was determined to win for blind people, and he was
fond of saying that if we don't take a risk and gamble on the difficult
ones, be they the difficult jobs or the difficult people to place, we really
aren't doing our clients a service. He was also dedicated to increasing the
morale on staff, doing his best to communicate that the field of
rehabilitating the blind was honorable and, when done right, infinitely
rewarding to the client and the professional alike. This sometimes put him
at odds with other agencies, for the increases he won to keep professionals
in the field sometimes placed them above others who believed they were doing
similar work for far less pay.

Allen served as the president of the National Federation of the Blind of
Michigan from 1976 to 1999, meaning he held down a fulltime job while
simultaneously being an officer. His presidency saw the creation of the
Michigan Commission for the Blind in 1978, the creation of a day camp, and
the start of Saturday school in the 80s. Throughout much of his presidency,
Allen served on the National Board of Directors. After his election in 1981,
he was elected as the corporate secretary in 1985 and then as the treasurer
in 1988. He served in that capacity until 2002. He may be best known for his
work in helping to establish and then administering the Kenneth Jernigan
Fund that has been responsible for getting so many first-timers to our
national conventions.

As impressive as his organizational contributions were, the transformation
he made in the lives of others is the thing for which he will be most fondly
remembered. Steve Handschu said, "The thing I remember most fondly about
Allen and the change he made in my life was that he got me to understand
that the words 'blindness' and 'dignity' could appear in the same sentence.
. . Allen made me and others feel that we could do better without making us
feel that we were in any way lacking. . If we wanted to make Allen happy,
and certainly we did, the way was through our own self-improvement. Because
he liked us, any success was ours and his, and, as was so characteristic of
Allen, he was always looking for the "win-win."

Steve relates a memorable moment when, at a banquet, a blind colleague
yelled out, "They have given me an unbuttered roll, and I need someone to
butter it." So loud and unexpected was this demand that the tables around
were temporarily speechless. Allen quietly got up, went to the gentleman,
and said, "I won't butter your roll for you, but I'll show you how to do
it." Taking the man's hands, he proceeded to do this without drawing more
attention to the incident. What was impressive was Allen's unquestioning
faith that the man could be taught and that Allen was the man to do the
teaching.

Steve Handschu's own transformation didn't happen just by observing Allen's
work in the lives of others. There was a dinner invitation to which Steve
was invited with Allen Harris and John Halverson. While walking to the
restaurant Steve fell into a hole. He wasn't using a cane, a dog, or any
kind of alternative technique because, as he had affirmatively stated on a
number of occasions, he wasn't blind. When Allen helped fish Steve out of
the hole, he gave Steve his cane, a bit of elementary instruction, and then
said, "Now, you use my cane, I'll follow you, and we're going to get to the
restaurant."

Steve's reaction was one of disbelief. "We're going to a restaurant, my
pants have mud on them, and you want me to use your cane while you follow
me? Have you never heard the biblical warning about when the blind lead the
blind?" Allen suggested that the value of the parable notwithstanding, when
he followed Steve he was doing so believing Steve had learned enough to get
them where they wanted to go. As for the clothes, there was no time to
change them, so he was encouraged to throw vanity to the wind.

Patti Chang said, "Allen was an amazing mentor in my youth and a friend as I
became active. He was always someone to emulate from his kindness to his
care for learning. Wherever he went, he affected those around him."

Bridgid Burke remembers: As an NFB staff member, I was fortunate to work
with Allen Harris on the Kenneth Jernigan Fund. Allen and Joy Harris, along
with Joy's sister Jay Cobb, worked to organize the first-time convention
attendee applications into a list of recipients to help them attend the NFB
National Convention for the first time. Every year a small group of people
would miss the distribution times and call Allen to tell him their story.
Allen and his big heart would reassure the recipient and say he would take
care of it. My phone would then ring, and I would hear Allen say, "Well, you
know I heard from so and so," and he'd launch into the story. I'm positive
he sprinkled "Allen dust" on it to pull at my heart strings. I was so
fortunate to meet and consider Allen and Joy my friends. I miss Allen's big
hugs and wonderful stories.

Barbara Pierce shares these memories: My friendship with Allen goes back to
the 1970s. He was a high school teacher at that time, and I can remember
thinking what a wonderful teacher he must have been: warm, funny, casual,
and no nonsense. He got things done and had a wonderful way of organizing
people and getting them to do their best.

I remember NAC Tracking in Edina, Minnesota, one November in the
mid-eighties. When our picket line was moving, there was no room for
pedestrians on the sidewalk. The hotel was unhappy, so it was not long until
the police appeared intent on getting us to clear the walk. Allen was in the
small group of Federation leaders negotiating with the police. We had no
idea what was being discussed. We were cuddled together, close to a hundred
strong, waiting in the bitter cold to hear what would be decided. Suddenly
Allen turned around to face us. In that booming voice that could be heard
across a gym or a pool, he shouted to us, "Listen up! I want to hear some
spontaneous singing, now!" Apparently the police were adamant that we could
not walk and block the sidewalk. Someone on our side asked if we could just
stand in a group and engage in spontaneous singing. That is what the police
agreed to. So sing we did-for five hours, in the cold, with the wind
blowing. 

Luckily we had a sizable collection of NAC songs and people like Sandy
Halverson to help lead us and keep us on pitch. But what I remember best was
Allen's shouted instruction for "spontaneous singing, now!"

Here are the remarks from our national board member and state president of
Alabama, Barbara Manuel: When the Harrises moved to Alabama, everyone was
elated to have them here. Allen continued his leadership role within the
National Federation of the Blind as soon as he got here. His wisdom,
intellect, and advocacy were even more apparent up close. Frank Lee was the
affiliate president when they arrived, and Allen and Joy immediately became
active with our Alabama affiliate. Allen had been a dynamic leader of the
organization for forty years or more, and his wisdom was greatly appreciated
here.

 

Over the years, Allen and Joy developed unbreakable bonds with our members.
After Joy's death and Allen revealed his plans to move back to Michigan,
members were heartbroken, but we truly understood his wish to be with his
family. As we reminisce about him and his contributions to the blind
community, we will be eternally grateful to him. Rest in peace, Allen!

We conclude with words selected by his family to convey both their grief and
joy. We share in these and will forever hold Allen in our hearts:

O Lord, I have lived this day to bury one I love. My gratitude is as full as
my grief, and my peace is as deep as my pain-all because of You. I need You
as never before. Shepherd my soul through these dry and heavy days. You send
us to Earth for this season, and then You receive us again unto yourself. I
understand this cycle, but I wasn't quite as ready to let go of this one as
I thought I'd be.

All my life, I've known that someday this would happen, but the finality and
reality of it are piercing. One thing I know is that death cannot kill love,
and human hands can't bury it. On this, my loved one's resurrection day, I
give you praise for a life lived well.

----------

[PHOTO CAPTION: Mark Riccobono]


President's Message


by Mark Riccobono

>From the Editor: This message was taken from the January issue of
Imagineering our Future, a monthly email publication that helps in keeping
members, friends, and donors up-to-date on the programs of our organization.
The message is tremendous, and any chance to emphasize Braille Day and our
commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is one we are glad to use.

Dear Friends,

The National Federation of the Blind began 2023 by celebrating World Braille
Day on January 4-the birthdate of Louis Braille. Braille is an important
tool for so many aspects of life. I was not given instruction in Braille
until the summer I turned twenty-one years old. It was like a renewal; it
opened new doors and it allowed me to make new resolutions for my future. It
always feels appropriate to launch a new year celebrating Braille.

On January 4, our partners at the American Printing House for the Blind
announced the name for the dynamic tactile display they are developing in
partnership with both HumanWare and the National Federation of the Blind.
Because the most efficient way to read Braille is two handed and the motions
outline the frame of a butterfly, the new multi-line display, which will
simultaneously display tactile graphics and Braille, is named Monarch.

Monarch could revolutionize the way we teach blind children by giving them
access to graphics at the same time and with the same ease as sighted
children. As a parent of two blind children, I experience the hardship that
comes when my daughters are denied the same educational materials as their
peers. And I might enjoy access to tactile displays of maps and art myself.
I doubt we have imagined all the applications for a dynamic tactile display
yet, but I look forward to discovering them.

Shortly after World Braille Day, our nation celebrates Martin Luther King
Jr. Day as a day of service. To my knowledge, Dr. King and the Federation's
first President, Dr. tenBroek, never met, but I sometimes imagine the lively
discussion that would have occurred between these two civil rights
champions. The work of these important figures and the intersections of
their work continue to be as pressing as ever in 2023. In the organized
blind movement, we continue to seek a deeper understanding of intersecting
characteristics within our community. The diversity of our membership and
fostering an inclusive organization is essential to the future of the
National Federation of the Blind.

I hope you will take time to work on our diversity, equity, and inclusion
efforts, attend some of our DEI events, and visit our DEI page to learn more
and read my letter about the meaningful process of improving our movement.
These can be found at
https://nfb.org/get-involved/diversity-equity-inclusion.

Sincerely,

Mark A. Riccobono, President

National Federation of the Blind

----------

[PHOTO CAPTION: Jill Heemskerk]


Engineering a New Response: Transforming At-Home Testing through Partnership
with the Blind


by Jill Heemskerk

>From the Editor: Dr. Jill Heemskerk is the deputy director of the National
Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering at the National
Institutes of Health. Here are the words President Riccobono used to
introduce her talk about our partnership to make possible at-home testing:

We've discussed extensively at this convention our disappointment with the
initial government announcement about the at-home COVID testing program. But
from January 3 forward-from the beginning-we have been very clear with the
administration that of all the tools that we have to compel the government
to get it right: We want to be a partner. We want to help get this right for
all at-home testing in the future. And when we did get the attention of the
government, our experience has been, especially with the leadership at the
National Institutes of Health, they've said, you know what? We did this
quickly. We didn't get it right on accessibility. But we are gonna nail this
going forward [applause]. And here's what I want to say about that. You may
not realize that at-home COVID testing is changing the nature of at-home
testing forever. In the month of February alone, more Americans took at-home
COVID tests in that month than took at-home pregnancy tests in all of 2021!
That means there's a big opportunity to innovate, and I think we should be
focused on the fact that the government, and especially the leadership at
NIH, has rallied to our call for equal access. Not only that, they have
called on us, the National Federation of the Blind, to be a trusted expert
in helping them get it right [cheering and applause]. So I'm really excited
to have with us at this convention the deputy director of the National
Institutes of Health National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and
Bioengineering. I've talked about it extensively in our presidential report.
Please welcome Dr. Jill Heemskerk!

[Intro music: Hit me with your best shot, why don't you hit me with your
best shot! Hit me with your best shot... fire away!]

JILL HEEMSKERK: [chuckling] I'm really wondering what to make of that intro
music [laughter]! You guys are a hoot.

Yes, so, thank you for that nice introduction, and good afternoon, everybody
[applause]. I am Jill Heemskerk, deputy director of, we'll say, NIBIB. You
heard the full name and it's a mouthful, but really what we are is the
engineering institute at the National Institutes of Health.

The NIH is one of the largest, is actually the largest funder of biomedical
research in the world, and funds most of the research done at universities,
small businesses, and research institutions in this country. It's actually
made up of twenty-seven different institutes and centers, and you know at
least one, because Dr. Tony Fauci runs the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Disease [cheering and applause]. That's one of the biggest NIH
institutes. Engineering is a small one, but we're mighty. And when the
pandemic started, Congress gave the NIH a lot of money to develop new
vaccines, new treatments, and new tests for COVID.

The engineering institute, our institute, NIBIB, was charged with developing
COVID tests, which is a perfect role for the engineering community. You'll
remember at the beginning of the pandemic how very hard it was to get a
COVID test, and then once you got your test, how long it took to get the
results back. Yeah, that's right, you couldn't even get them.

So, I'm going to tell you today about a program we started called RADx, and
that stands for Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics. We've been successful at
delivering about half the diagnostics available in the country now, not only
in laboratories, but also at point of care in doctors' offices, clinics, as
well as the at-home tests that we're so grateful to have. But really the big
story today is our partnership with NFB to make home tests more accessible
for people with blindness and low vision [applause]. So, as we just heard,
when the government started distributing free tests to people in the country
early this year, NFB and other advocacy groups quickly did some very
important and very effective outreach to the government. They pointed out
that, while it's great to have tests in the country, the tests that we have
are not accessible to people with blindness and low vision and other
disabilities.

We completely agree and recognize that everybody needs tests that can be
taken easily, independently, and confidentially.

And so I'm going to tell you about our RADx efforts to make accessible tests
a reality.

I'm going to first describe the RADx program, because it's unique and it's
quite a powerful process for accelerating research and development. NIBIB
had received funding for development, because we already had a program in
place since 2007 developing point-of-care and at-home tests for lots of
different diseases and conditions. We quickly expanded that network in April
of 2020 to focus on COVID test development.

We had four academic centers at the time and a coordinating center at Mass
General Hospital. We established new core resources to validate tests,
conduct clinical studies that the FDA needs for authorization, and we set up
one resource that is truly unique at NIH called the Deployment Core at
CIMIT, which has all of the expertise in house to get tests from the ideas
stage all the way out to the market.

What we did is provide much more than funding to these manufacturers. We
provided this wrap-around support to the companies developing tests that
managed issues around supply chain, manufacturing, and FDA authorization. We
helped them solve every problem in getting an entirely new kind of test to
the marketplace.

The experts in the Deployment Core spent the last two years working with
over nine hundred experts from multiple sectors to create an entirely new
ecosystem of at-home and point-of-care tests in the US.

We started with a broad call for technology solutions as soon as we got the
money in April, and this really galvanized the engineering community. We
were amazed that we attracted 824 separate proposals for tests from
companies and academic institutions. To deal with this onslaught of
proposals, we set up a pipeline to evaluate the tests and figure out which
ones were the most important to support. We developed a unique process for
NIH that almost resembles a venture capital approach. We started off with a
viability assessment, and then proposals that looked promising entered what
we were calling the "Shark Tank" phase, where a team of experts worked
closely with the companies over one or two weeks to look at all their data
and their capabilities, and we examined all the aspects of the technology:
the technical, the clinical, the regulatory, and the plans for
manufacturing.

So, we had a very good sense of which of these test proposals were the most
promising. We moved those into phase one, which was sort of a de-risking
phase-trying to make the test, trying to validate the test-we helped with
all of that. And those that were successful moved to phase two, where there
was a very large-scale investment to get the clinical studies done for the
FDA and to scale up the tests for the marketplace. This novel, hands-on
process has proved to be tremendously successful, and we actually reduced
what is typically a several-year test development timeline down to as little
as six months.

What have we accomplished so far? We have delivered 2.6 billion tests and
products to the United States-that's billion with a b [applause].

For comparison, last year in the US, there were eight million pregnancy
tests taken; so that's just a completely different scale.

These tests include not only laboratory but point-of-care and home tests,
and they represent about half of the tests that are available in the US now.

We have supported tests all the way to FDA emergency use authorization. We
have forty-four FDA authorizations under our belt, including ten for at-home
tests, and we've got more on the way [applause]. In this process, we've
worked with more than one hundred manufacturers, and we're relying on our
relationships with these companies to help in our effort now to develop more
accessible tests for people with blindness and disabilities.

We are still actively working and developing new tests and continuing with
this successful pipeline. Central to this, of course, is developing tests
that can be used independently by people with blindness and low vision. But
we plan now and going forward that accessibility will be built into all of
our development efforts, [cheering and applause] including efforts to
develop at-home tests that are as reliable as lab tests. We also would like
to broaden our efforts to other diseases. For example, respiratory
infections like flu and RSV. We'd like to spur innovation in the cost
drivers to get tests to the market that are not only accessible but cost as
little as $5 per test [applause]. Thank you.

It's funny to look back at the start of this project. I thought that if we
could just have a COVID test that was like a pregnancy test, that would be
great. We'd be done. And then we get to that point, and we realize, oh,
they're not accessible, they're not affordable. They're not very sensitive.
So there's still a lot to be done.

That is where the partnership with NFB comes in. Once the NFB and other
groups reached out to the government about the importance of accessible
tests, the first thing we did in RADx was to organize a listening session.
Actually, that was the second thing we did. The first thing was regret that
we had not had accessibility built in at the outset.

We set up a listening session so that we could talk to the users and
understand the challenges in the accessibility of at-home tests. We invited
advocates from the disability community, the aging community, and the blind
and low-vision communities.

Beyond just listening, the important goal here was to set up relationships
so that we could integrate these users into what we knew was going to be an
ongoing process to develop tests. We didn't want to have a single engagement
and then go from there. We wanted to have active partners. And I have to say
that NFB has been incredibly generous with their time and education and
resources [applause].

We also invited the six federal agencies that have accessibility as part of
their mission, including multiple institutes from NIH, the CDC, FDA, the
Administration for Community Living, the National Council on Disability, and
the US Access Board. We had at this meeting three breakout sessions: one
blind and low-vision, one fine motor impairment, and one for older adults.
It was incredibly revealing for us to hear about things that we had not even
considered, incredibly valuable feedback. One thing that we did notice was
that these groups, in their separate breakout groups, often came up with the
same challenges, regardless of what the challenge was. And they were
actually challenges that we all have with these tests. The instructions were
a big one: small print, complicated, few language options, no Braille at
all. And often no simple, step by step instructions. The boxes were
difficult to understand because there's no scannable identifier, so you have
a box and you don't know what's in it; you don't know what instructions to
look for.

The test procedure itself is challenging too, truly for almost everybody.
There are too many steps in these processes: the need to count drops of
fluid and aim into a tiny hole on the device, multiple small little parts in
the box, and instructions that say things like "put the drops in the top
hole." Well, if you don't know which end of the device is up, you don't know
what's the top hole and what's the bottom hole.

I think especially vexing for people with blindness is that repeated
instruction not to touch this part and not to touch that part
[applause]-that is just not helpful at all [applause].

Also key for people with blindness is that the result appears often as a
little faint line on a strip. There's no simple interpretation that says
"your test is positive" or "your test is negative." Although some of the
tests work with smartphones, they're not accessible to many people. We
learned that as many as 40 percent of these communities don't have access to
cell phones.

So, we are taking a two-pronged approach here. One prong is the fastest
approach, which is to modify existing tests. The other prong is the best
approach, which is a longer-term plan to design accessible tests with
accessibility built into the design from the very beginning, which clearly
is the preferred approach [cheering and applause]. We'll be announcing a
solicitation for proposals in a matter of just a few weeks. But I'm going to
tell you a little bit about our process for test modification, which we're
very engaged and excited about.

Ellume is a good example of a reasonably accessible test, and that was noted
by the NFB in their own accessibility evaluation. And the government-I want
to make sure I tell you-the government on covidtest.gov, is making Ellume
COVID tests available free to people with blindness and low vision
[applause]. But even Ellume, if you've taken it, has room for improvement.
And those improvements are what we want to bring to bear. So our process is
a multistep pipeline, where we start with the accessibility evaluation and
then, based on the challenges observed for the particular test, design a
prototype. On the advice of NFB, some of our designers are people with
blindness and people with low vision [applause]. Getting advice from experts
is always the best idea.

Once we have the prototype designed, we'll move into the user feedback
phase. Again, we want to put these in the hands of people with blindness and
low vision for them to tell us if we got it right, and what we need to do
next. This is a very high-touch process with lots of user involvement. We're
going to go through that process twice. Tests that have gone through the
user feedback stage already, and we've heard, no, that's not quite what we
want. So what we're thinking is that we're going to start with a sort of
early prototype, go back to the design stage with the feedback, and then
produce a more mature prototype and get feedback again. We'll do that as
many times as we need to get something that is acceptable to the community
[cheering and applause]. Once we have an agreed-upon product, we'll support
the companies to start producing those.

We identified twenty-four different tests for this initial evaluation, and
twelve look very amenable to modification, and have moved on into this
prototype design phase.

Our goal is to have more accessible tests being produced as early as this
fall [applause].

We've had a lot of good news in this process already. The first piece of
good news we got was that, as we reach out to the companies making these
tests and tell them what we're doing, they've been saying, "That's great. Do
this as quickly as possible. We're developing tests for other things. We
want to know how to make them accessible." [applause] So they're very eager
for the feedback. And very, very eager to start producing more accessible
tests. They see a huge benefit in this. We even had a company start making
modifications before we got all the user feedback in, and we had to tell
them to slow down, they were so eager!

The other very gratifying news is that we have always collaborated closely
with the FDA on our RADx program, and they are also very excited about this
and prepared to advise and accelerate the process. Any changes we make to
the tests are going to have to go through FDA review, and they're going to
need data that tells them that the changes made don't do anything to make
the test unsuccessful. So even something as simple as changing the
instructions is going to take probably three months before there's a new
product on the shelves.

There are two other elements of the accessibility initiative that I wanted
to mention. One is really focused on the instructions, because two-thirds of
our recommendations from the accessibility review have been about the
instructions. So we've set up a separate fast-track process that can benefit
all of the marketed tests. We'd like to develop a general format that all
companies can use that is simplified, has larger type, has a new layout, and
we will make this available so that any company, whether they're working
with us or not as they're developing their instructions, can use this
template [applause].

For web-accessible instructions, we are addressing packaging for rapid
access to the relevant instructions, such as QR codes. I was really
interested to hear what Kellogg has-that you can do that from four feet away
is brilliant. The FDA is poised to help, as I said, and they will review the
new instructions after all the users have agreed that the instructions are
now actually helpful.

The other effort that we're doing is a best practices effort, because what
we'd like is for the work that we're doing to benefit all test
manufacturing. Now home tests are commonplace because of COVID, and there
are going to be other tests for other disorders: glucose tests, flu test,
pregnancy tests. We want accessibility guidelines to be available to
manufacturers so they can design with accessibility in mind from the outset
[applause].

So in conclusion, everybody at RADx is really excited about this initiative.
We recognize that accessibility improvements will benefit everybody, and
we're very grateful to the NFB for their role in not only stimulating this
work, but for their ongoing support and advice as we work together to create
accessible COVID tests. Thank you very much [cheering and applause].

----------

[PHOTO CAPTION: Catherine Mendez]


What You Should Know to Win Yourself a Scholarship


by Catherine Mendez

>From the Editor: Cayte is not only a first-rate member, teacher, and
citizen. She can really write, and this she does to talk about scholarships
and how students can go about getting one. Here is what she says:

Each year the NFB scholarship program receives many, many questions related
to the hows and whys of the scholarship process. Many of the answers to
these questions can be found at
https://nfb.org/programs-services/scholarships-and-awards/scholarship-progra
m/scholarship-program-faqs, however, it is worth expanding on some of the
responses to these frequently asked questions in order to give a fuller,
more detailed view of the scholarship program. The following is an overview
of the program, its benefits, and the application process. Remember, you
can't win if you don't apply, and now is the perfect time to start getting
your application materials together!

What is the purpose of the NFB scholarship program?

The NFB scholarship program has two long-time, overarching goals that
continue to guide our work. First, the program seeks to support and promote
the academic and career success of blind students nationwide by rewarding
scholastic excellence. Second, the program serves as an opportunity to grow
potential leaders within our organization by selecting applicants who
exhibit ingenuity, creativity, and the ability to motivate others and giving
them access to Federation leadership at the highest levels through the
convention mentoring process.

How are scholarships selected and awarded?

In April, the NFB scholarship committee will review all of the several
hundred applications the program will have received on or before the March
31 deadline. This group of successful blind Federation leaders from across
the country will select the top thirty applicants who will become the
scholarship class of 2023. There are far more qualified applications each
year than there are scholarships to be awarded. Applicants who have applied
before and have not yet received a scholarship should apply again. Some
members of the scholarship class of 2022 received their scholarships after
two or even three attempts. Don't give up!

What is the value of an NFB scholarship?

The process of applying for a scholarship, and the experience of being a
winner, are the true prizes, above and beyond the financial award. Yes, each
of the thirty finalists for 2023 will receive $8,000 to help pay for college
expenses, but while the money will be quickly spent, the benefits of being a
scholarship winner will last for a lifetime. During the NFB's national
convention, which all finalists are required to attend in full, scholarship
finalists have the opportunity to network with other blind students, to
exchange information and ideas, and to meet and talk with hundreds of blind
people who are successfully employed in many occupations and professions.

There is no dollar amount that can be assigned to the friendships that
develop among the members of a scholarship class, as they support one
another during an action-packed week of getting to know the Federation and
sharing their own accomplishments and goals with us. Likewise, there isn't a
financial equivalent to the unprecedented access our finalists gain every
year to the outstanding leaders who serve as members of the scholarship
committee. Through discussions with these successful blind mentors,
scholarship winners have an unequaled opportunity to get to know our
organization's leaders by asking questions and discussing their own ideas
and opinions. They also have the chance to make all of our Federation
experiences richer as they share their own diverse experiences and
perspectives with us during the Board of Directors meeting and at student
division events.

When the gavel drops each year and convention draws to a close, the rewards
of the scholarship program do not come to an end. Our winners continue to
deepen their connections and maintain their collaboration with one another
as they pursue their various academic degrees and professional goals. They
continue to build relationships with the Federation through involvement with
their state affiliates, strengthening and evolving the foundations laid
during those initial applicant interviews and enriched during the week of
the convention itself. Our winners develop and strengthen professional
networks with other blind people in their chosen fields and with members who
share in their intersectional identities through the work of our divisions
and groups. They serve on NABS [National Association of Blind Students]
boards, take on the work of the Federation in their affiliates, and carry
what they have learned about the capacity of the blind into their schools,
communities, and families. The scholarship checks are mailed and cashed in
August, but the rewards of being an NFB scholarship recipient last for a
lifetime

What constitutes an outstanding scholarship application?

The best way to answer this is to begin by debunking some persistent myths
around the scholarship selection process. Many think the key to becoming a
scholarship winner is a high grade point average. While an applicant's GPA
certainly has value because it demonstrates their ability to learn and be
successful academically, this is by no means the only attribute that
influences the decisions of the scholarship committee. Likewise, others
believe that the secret to winning is abundant participation in
extracurricular activities. Recognizing an applicant's willingness to take
on commitments outside of school and/or work can help the committee develop
a portrait of a well-rounded individual, however, this is also not
sufficient in itself to justify a scholarship award.

Still others think the magic scholarship winning ingredient is an
applicant's level of commitment to the NFB. It is certainly true that the
scholarship program provides our organization with a tremendous opportunity
to develop future leaders, but scholarship awards are by no means restricted
to members of the organization. The National Federation of the Blind is
dedicated to creating opportunities for all blind people. Recipients of NFB
scholarships need not be members of the NFB. Many of our past winners were
not even aware of the NFB before they applied for our scholarships.

Others speculate that the committee looks for winners among applicants from
specific fields of study or specific demographics. However, over the years,
students of all ages and in widely differing fields have become finalists.
The class of 2022 included students entering their freshman year, as well as
older students who were nearly ready to write their PhD dissertations. Past
scholarship winners are working toward credentials for employment in many
diverse fields.

The truthful answer is that there is no one attribute that serves as the
proverbial silver bullet for guaranteeing that an applicant will receive a
scholarship. The committee examines each application on its own merits, and
considers each applicant within the context of the materials they submit.
The best way to ensure yourself a chance to win is to apply by submitting a
complete application that represents your achievements and goals with
authenticity.

What constitutes a complete scholarship application?

A complete application consists of the official application form and a
student essay, plus these supporting documents: student transcripts, one
letter of recommendation, and proof of legal blindness. Each applicant must
also complete an interview with the NFB affiliate president of their state
of residence or the state where they will be attending school. High school
seniors may also include a copy of the results of their ACT, SAT, or other
college entrance exams.

Students should carefully consider who can do the best job of writing their
letter of reference. These letters should support the application by being
full of facts and observations that will help the members of the committee
see the applicant as a bright, active student and citizen.

Remember to use the spell checker (or a human proofreader) before submitting
the essay! In an effective essay the applicant will talk about their life in
a way that gives the committee insight into who they are. The essay should
cover the ways in which each applicant lives successfully as a blind person
and describe the applicant's personal goals for the future. Information
about positions of leadership is especially helpful. Committee members give
the essay a great deal of attention.

It is true that the requirements for an NFB scholarship application are
varied and extensive. It is a good idea to begin gathering the required
documents as soon as possible and to begin reaching out to the prospective
authors of recommendation letters to give those folks plenty of time to
craft thoughtful, detailed letters that reflect well on each applicant.

If everything is uploaded but the submit button is not pressed, will the
application be considered?

NO! Only submitted applications are considered by the committee! Remember,
applicants can return to their online form as often as necessary during the
application window, but MUST hit the submit button for their application to
be considered complete. Those who have properly submitted will receive an
email confirmation. If an applicant does not receive this confirmation
email, their application will not be considered complete and cannot be
reviewed by the committee. They should go back and hit submit as soon as
possible to guarantee that their application will be considered.

Who is eligible to win an NFB scholarship?

Are you a legally blind student? Do you reside in one of the fifty states,
the District of Colombia, or Puerto Rico? Will you be pursuing a full-time
post-secondary course of study in a degree program at an accredited United
States institution in the fall of the 2023-2024 academic year? Will you be
eighteen years of age by July 1, 2023, and will you be able to participate
in person in the entire NFB National Convention and in all scheduled
scholarship activities from July 1 through July 6 if chosen as a finalist?
If you answered yes to all these questions, please visit
https://nfb.org/scholarships to begin the online application today!

----------


Who Are the Blind Who Lead the Blind: Those Elected in 2022


Periodically we run the article "Who Are the Blind Who Lead the Blind," but
for this issue we have chosen to highlight the newest members elected at our
most recent convention in July of 2022. Enjoy becoming acquainted with these
talented and dedicated people who give so much to serve us:

[PHOTO CAPTION: Donald Porterfield]


Donald Porterfield: Husband, Uncle, Brother, Son, Prosecutor, and a Member
of the National Federation of the Blind


Donald Porterfield was elected to the National Federation of the Blind's
Board of Directors in July of 2022. He is also the president of the NFB of
Arizona. Born in 1959 to James and Doris Porterfield, he has three siblings:
an older sister, an older brother, and his twin. His blindness is caused by
diabetes and did not manifest itself until he was forty-eight years old.

Donald says that he was a medium to good student, but his school experience
was significantly enhanced by his participation as an athlete. "I was lucky
to be good at sports, and that brought me some friends, but given that I am
an introvert, the thing that I feel most fortunate about is that I am a twin
and was born with my best childhood friend."

The onset of Donald's blindness occurred in the same year his father died,
so he and his family had two crises to deal with in the same year. For some,
their adjustment to Donald's blindness was a slow process, while some
adjusted quicker. Some saw that it was their responsibility to take care of
Donald, but that sense of obligation they felt didn't last long when it
became clear that Donald was doing his own cooking, laundry, and had no
trouble with his personal hygiene. This he could boast even before any
training in the skills of blindness.

>From as early as he can remember, Donald wanted to be a prosecutor, but it
took him some time to get to a place where he could go to law school. He
spent the first twenty-three years of his working career in the golf resort
and hospitality industry. For much of that time he was an executive, and
many years of his tenure with the company saw him as vice president of food
and beverage operations. This was not an easy job for him because
unquestionably he is an introvert and had to learn how to be gregarious and
outgoing. He laughs that his twin brother can walk into a supermarket and
walk out knowing one hundred people, but this was not how Donald experienced
life. Learning to be outgoing has been a challenge. "My former manager and
mentor was somewhat bombastic and always put me into a position where I had
to improve my stage presence. At times he certainly made me uncomfortable,
but this paid off not only in my career as a manager but would reveal itself
as beneficial in the other twists and turns that would come to make up my
life."

It was in the second week of his second year in law school that Donald, at
age forty-eight, began experiencing real vision problems. He had noticed a
slight decrease in vision over time, and this he attributed to age. But on
that fatal day, he found that he simply could not focus on any of the work
before him. Figuring that he was fatigued, he went to take a nap. After the
nap his vision seemed normal again, but when he went back to school on the
following Monday, the focus problems returned, so off to an ophthalmologist
he went. The diagnosis was retinopathy, a result of his diabetes, and much
of the next two years found him going to doctors once a week and trying
different surgeries, all while managing his studies in law school. "When I
found that my reading speed dropped from four hundred words a minute to
sixty words a minute, I was afraid, but I soon realized that either I had to
pack it in and leave or figure it out and keep moving toward my dream. I
chose the latter and along the journey found out I was an auditory learner.
Ultimately, I graduated with my law degree. After graduation we had to try
one more surgery. The surgeon thought he could restore most of my vision if
he peeled off the scar tissue that had accumulated, but he tried and he was
wrong. The result is that now I can still see light and certain shapes, but
I can no longer perceive the difference between most colors."

Donald graduated from law school at age fifty and moved back to Arizona. "I
knew that if I was going to be a competent lawyer and blind man, I needed
blindness training." He first learned about the National Federation of the
Blind while in training at SAAVI Services for the Blind from the person who
would become his wife and is now the primary partner in everything he does.
He did his homework and concluded that he liked the grassroots civil rights
organization that he found in the National Federation of the Blind. "I grew
up as a black kid in the 60s, so I understood discrimination and was
experiencing the same things as a blind person. Not only did I get disparate
treatment, but I was also being patronized and in not very subtle ways told
that I was incapable. I realized I had the spirit of a Federationist without
being a member, and in the Federation was where I wanted to be." So off he
went to a chapter meeting and later on that year to a national convention
where he took his first ride with a blind driver as President Riccobono
chauffeured him around the hotel parking lot. He was hooked.

After gaining the skills, tools, and competency through training, Donald
fulfilled his lifelong professional dream by becoming a deputy county
attorney, serving as a prosecutor for Pima County, Arizona. When he was
going through law school, many of his colleagues mistakenly believed that he
wanted to be a defense attorney, but he believes the role of a prosecutor is
that of a "minister of justice." Being a prosecutor is more than just
prosecuting people who commit crimes; it is about making sure everyone
connected to the criminal justice system is treated fairly and receives
justice.

Donald's first significant job in the Federation was serving as the
legislative director for the Arizona affiliate. His tenure has witnessed the
passage of the statute that protects the rights of blind parents, and he is
equally happy about the pieces of legislation that he and his affiliate
members have kept from becoming law. Many of these attempts have involved
increasing regulations on guide dogs and their users, and all of these have
been successfully turned back.

When asked what asset he thought to be the most significant of those he
brings to the Federation, he said, "I can easily talk to policymakers about
blind equality, and I love doing it. We have many members who don't have
that comfort level, and, because I am an introvert, I understand their
unwillingness and perhaps inability to speak out. Given my background, I've
learned to work around my innate inability, and I think this makes me a
stronger advocate. . Hamilton is one of my favorite plays. In Hamilton they
ask the question 'Who will tell your story?' That same question has been
asked of us. Only we can tell our story because we are the only ones living
an authentic life as a blind person."

"I used to have to work at getting into the character of being an advocate,
a describer of life as I and others live it, but I now realize I am not
playing another character; I am simply being me. I like educating the public
about the positive truths about blind people. I was faced with so many
misconceptions when I was ready to take the bar examination and was
searching for a job that any chance to minimize these for others is one I
enthusiastically embrace."

Given that a major goal of his life is to live one that is full, balanced,
and enjoyable, his activities go well beyond his professional work and
organizational commitment. He and Amy love to travel and to embrace the new
experiences it offers. He loves jazz and they spend a lot of time listening
to this art form and going to concerts. He also loves to read and often he
and Amy find themselves sharing a book and the pleasant conversations that
accompany the reading.

"I love my wife Amy, and everything I do, I do with her. We are passionate
about civil rights for the blind, and we often say our family is in the
civil rights business. I love how fortunate we are that we can travel this
path together."

----------

[PHOTO CAPTION: Shelia Wright]


Shelia Wright: Rehabilitation Professional, Entrepreneur, Leader of Blind
People


Shelia Wright was elected to the National Federation of the Blind Board of
Directors in July of 2022. Her service in the National Federation of the
Blind began in South Carolina, was evidenced in Nebraska, and for more than
three decades the state of Missouri has been the beneficiary of her
initiative, hard work, and follow-through.

When Shelia was born, her vision problem was known almost immediately, but
the extent to which she could not see was often downplayed and the word
blindness was never used. She needed glasses by the time she started school,
but not much was provided in the way of accommodation except letting her sit
closer to the front of the class. By the time she got to the end of
elementary school, she was sitting about four feet from the blackboard near
the teacher's desk.

Shelia went to elementary school in Hartsville, South Carolina, and she got
there by walking or riding her bicycle. When in junior high the school was
too far away, she got herself to the elementary school in the same way and
then caught a bus.

By her senior year in high school, it was determined she needed large print
books; she often ran into the problem of getting ones that were out-of-date.
To her great frustration, she could study all she should but still end up
writing down the wrong answers because her books were not the newest edition
being used by her teacher and classmates. Soon she got to the place where
she started leaving books in the locker and relying as much as she could on
what she heard in class. Because she brought no alternative techniques to
the game, her grades in junior high and high school were less than stellar.

Shelia remembers first being diagnosed as "blind" when she was sixteen.
Before, she was always dismissed after examinations, and her doctors met
with her parents who were told that there was nothing they could do for her,
and they were referred back to the optometrist, who they said was doing an
excellent job fitting her with glasses. Shelia believes that the inaccurate
diagnosis and hesitancy by the ophthalmologist to talk with patient and
family did not provide them with the information needed to seek out and
support appropriate specialized educational services. This is the reason
Shelia has been so adamant about young blind children getting diagnosed
quickly and ensuring that students begin learning Braille at an early age.
"It certainly should have been before age sixteen that I heard I had a
progressive eye condition that was so significant that I was already legally
blind. The doctor told me I should learn Braille because it would be easier
to learn at sixteen than at thirty when there would be no other options."

When Shelia started to plug in to vocational rehabilitation services, she
immediately had to undergo psychological testing, a custom of the agency at
that time. The prediction of the psychologist and her rehabilitation
counselor was that she would not make it beyond one semester in college.
"The only reason you want to go to college is to get your MRS degree," she
was dismissively told.

"None of my cousins went to college, but when I was told I could not, that
was very motivating for me. Being told I can't often is the prescription for
I can, and I will."

Her motivation, hard work, and innate ability meant that Shelia graduated
with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. She chose this path to reduce the
number of classes in mathematics and science. She then entered a master's
program in education, specializing in vocational rehabilitation counseling,
and after successfully securing that degree, she has managed to work in
three states.

Shelia worked for several months at the Iowa Commission for the Blind as a
rehabilitation associate. This was an opportunity for her to see vocational
rehabilitation for the blind at its best, and this job gave her invaluable
experience. When she returned to South Carolina, she marketed her skills to
a nursing home that had several blind residents. She was hired to work with
blind and visually impaired residents on how to travel safely around the
facility. She also assisted them in participating in social and recreational
activities. Additionally, she taught staff to help blind residents be more
independent. She found this job exciting for about six months and worked
until a fulltime job in the field of vocational rehabilitation became a
reality.

In the state of South Carolina, the general rehabilitation agency
discriminated against blind people, saying that if a blind person wanted a
job in the field, they should go to the agency for the blind because the
general agency needed its counselors to travel. The reality was that
rehabilitation counselors at the Commission for the Blind traveled more than
their counterparts in the general agency.

When Shelia took a job at the South Carolina Commission for the Blind, she
did so with some reluctance. She really wanted to work in some other field
and then come back to rehabilitation for a career, but that is not the way
things worked out. "I was really afraid that I would end up being
pigeonholed into a job that I didn't want, and I wanted rehab to be
something that I actively chose to do with my heart and my soul." She worked
at the Commission for about three years, but periodically she would be
solicited by Dr. James Nyman, the director of the Nebraska agency. At first
she was cavalier about the interviews, at one point telling him that the
only job she would be interested in was the one he held. After more calls
and some negotiation, she eventually took a job as the director of the
orientation and adjustment center. Taking that job was a gutsy thing for her
to attempt given that she had never been to an orientation center, had never
had any cane travel, and what Braille she knew came from her own learning.
She relied on friends when she needed help and advice in any of these areas,
and though it certainly was not the easiest or most traditional way to begin
managing a program, she embraced and overcame the challenge. Those friends
also helped her solidify her understanding and internalization of the
philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind, a view she was familiar
with but was never sure she thoroughly understood or had worked at
integrating into her being.

After working in this position for three years she decided it was time to
move along. Though Shelia would return to the agency for some temporary work
to help them in solving a staffing problem, eventually she came to Missouri.
The job search she conducted saw her sending out thirty to forty job
applications a week for about six months, and, strangely, on the day when
she received a job offer from Missouri, there were two of them: one was with
the state agency and the other with a private agency in St. Louis called
ABLE. She took the counseling job with the state agency and moved to Kansas
City. She was challenged because at that time there were no blind counselors
working for the agency. "If you were blind, you worked as a rehabilitation
teacher who is paired with a sighted assistant. As a counselor they did not
even give me as much as a Braille writer." Her work for the agency started
in July of 1984 and continued until August of 1988. She then went to work
for Blind FOCUS, a private agency, where she worked until 1995. She is
particularly proud of the program she helped to build that was for students
transitioning from high school to college to work.

Believing that she had spent too much of her life working in the field of
blindness and wanting to move into event planning, Shelia left Blind FOCUS
in 1995. Though she did not pursue the career she thought she would, she has
held a number of jobs that have resulted in new programs and good
programming for the blind. She helped in shaping the Technology Access
Program for Internet, an innovative program in Missouri that provides
screen-reading software and other assistive technology to allow blind people
to gain access to the resources found on the internet. She has worked as a
consumer support provider for that program since its inception and continues
to do so, providing direct teaching and product evaluation. She contracted
with Missouri Rehabilitation Services for the Blind to conduct the Code
Master Project which focused on blind adults needing intensive training in
Braille, and she has contracted to do program evaluations in other states.

Nationally one of the efforts that Shelia is most proud of is participating
in the creation of the National Association of Blind Rehabilitation
Professionals. "Before this group, many of us felt like Lone Rangers out in
our agencies, and I saw this group as being really important to give us
inspiration as we tried through our daily work to bring about the hopes and
dreams that are embodied in the Federation."

Of course, her work with the National Federation of the Blind has kept her
extremely busy. She has been an active member in all the states in which she
has lived, joining the Missouri Board in 1993, becoming second vice
president in 2001, moving to first vice president in 2003, and assuming her
current job as affiliate president in 2017. Since Gary Wunder was the state
president for much of the time before she assumed that title, he can tell
you that one of the things that elevates people to office and keeps them
there is the willingness to follow through on commitments. He says, "Never
did Shelia leave us hanging out on a limb. If she promised to make a call,
it was made, write a letter and it was written, chair a committee and it
met, organize a legislative event and it was organized, and, wow, could she
keep a list. She has always been an active supporter of anything we put our
name on, but her support has not always been without criticism. When I sent
out an annual list of affiliate committees and asked my ranking officer
Shelia what she thought of the appointments I had made, she said, 'I often
wonder whether you are drunk when you make these lists.' You can bet I
worked harder at seeking her advice when drawing up future lists."

Like the rest of us, Shelia has a life beyond work and Federation
activities. She married Harvey Fisher in 1985, he being a rehabilitation
teacher for the state agency. Unfortunately, Harvey died as a result of
cancer in 1991. In 1996 she married Jeff Wright, an able and loving
helpmate. Jeff shares her love of the Federation and in addition to helping
her do many behind-the-scenes tasks, he has also served as a chapter officer
for many years. Together they work hard in their church and strive to live
the values in which they deeply believe.

Shelia's hobbies include tandem biking, swimming, playing the guitar, and
reading. She also enjoys sports, and those who know her are well aware they
should not call when either the Kansas City Chiefs or the South Carolina
Gamecocks are playing.

Shelia says that she believes one of the greatest assets she brings to the
Federation is developing projects and programs and then overseeing many of
them until they are well-established. "I like being a change agent and the
new endeavors we create. I am proud of the fact that we established a
program for young students called Mission Believe, another program called
Mission BEAM, and an active group that is now known as the Cane Drivers. I
am not always the person who does most of the work, but one of my strengths
is in building teams and in helping them get things done."

"I have enjoyed watching things change, such as seeing kids who come to the
convention with canes learning to use them and getting around by themselves.
I was glad that Nebraska was a part of this and that at the time I was a
part of the Nebraska agency and the affiliate. When I look back on
advancements we have made, I am proud of all of them; whether they bear my
handprint is less important than the fact that I have actively participated
in the Federation and therefore have something to do with everything that
gives blind people an opportunity to live a better life."

---------

[PHOTO CAPTION: Grace Pires]


Grace Pires: Caregiver, Mother, Wife, Role Model, Affiliate Leader


Grace Pires was elected to the National Federation of the Blind Board of
Directors in July of 2022 and also serves as the president of the National
Federation of the Blind of Rhode Island. She was born in Portugal in 1970.
Within three months Grace's mother Virginia realized that something was
wrong with Grace's vision. She was not actively trying to look at things,
nor did she track in the way that her mother had witnessed in other
children. The first visit to a local pediatrician resulted in her mother's
concerns being dismissed, but when other doctors were consulted, they agreed
that there definitely was a problem, though to this day no one has been able
to accurately diagnose the reason for Grace's blindness. Some doctors have
offered the opinion that she is blind because of retinitis pigmentosa, while
others argued that it is most likely Leber's disease given that she has
never had any vision and the condition is genetic. Her parents did what
genetic testing was available and were told there was a 25 percent chance
that any future offspring would be blind. Her younger brother is blind, but
the upside is that there are some important things they share together.

Grace did not start school until she was ten. The Portuguese island on which
she was born had no school for the blind, and both she and her parents were
very upset by the residential experience at the school on a neighboring
island. After this experience, the family made a real effort to come to the
United States, and it was at this point that Grace really began her formal
education. "Coming to the United States was in some respects the end of my
childhood. I didn't really know what to ask for, but all of a sudden I had
to be an advocate for myself and, because they didn't speak English, for my
parents as well. She was placed in the fourth grade to be near children her
own age, but she certainly was in no position to do the work. She first had
to learn English, then Braille, and it wasn't until the sixth grade that she
really began to hit her stride. Before that time she would rely on her
cousin, a second grader who could read print, who would help her with
learning to spell. She was elated when, in the seventh grade, she realized
that she was independently doing work that let her study for and pass tests.
"I was quite excited when I was able to take home and do my homework. I know
many students who said that they couldn't stand it, but for me the feeling
was tremendous."

Grace began receiving cane travel when she was twelve years old, and at
first she had mixed feelings about the experience. "I was afraid that people
were going to see by my cane that I was blind, and I laugh now at my
reluctance because it is clear to me that everyone already knew I was. Even
as I felt this reluctance, I loved the independence I was getting. I was
happy to be an independent traveler who could walk around the school by
myself and could actually go to the lady's room without another student
assisting me. I was really excited when my parents and other adults let me
walk alone once they realized I could travel safely with my cane."

"Making friends was very easy when I was a novelty, but as the novelty wore
off, I began to find it more difficult when some of my friends dropped away.
Luckily I had a core group that I built during middle school, and although
class changes in high school meant that we were not always together, some of
those friendships survived, one of them even into college."

Unfortunately for Grace, she grew up having few role models, and the idea
that a person might go to a rehabilitation center was never raised as a
possibility, not to mention a wonderful opportunity. Failing to see blind
people she wanted to be like, she had what she categorizes as a meltdown at
age thirteen and angrily asked her teacher of the visually impaired what in
the world a blind person was supposed to grow up to do and be. Her dream was
to get an education, have a job, get married, and have a family. Her teacher
was resourceful and took Grace to visit a lecture on health that was being
given by a blind woman. "The lecture was impressive and the blind woman
giving it was educated and well spoken. She gave me hope. She let me know
that I could do what she was doing, that I was smart, and that I could do
anything I wanted to do. This was a major turning point in my life. This
woman named Monica became a mentor throughout school and in my career. We
still maintain some meaningful contact today."

Grace remembers that the first time she learned that a piece of equipment
could be modified for her use was when her family got a microwave oven. She
couldn't use it, and this same teacher suggested that they mark it with
dots. "When I got those dots and we put them on, I felt like it was
Christmas."

Grace attended Rhode Island College, a four-year institution near where she
lived. There she took a bachelor's degree in social work, and when she
couldn't find a job, she went back to school and earned a master's degree in
the same field. When she looked at the employment market after her
bachelor's, she was surprised to find that so much of the work involved
travel and that so little in the way of transportation existed for her. By
the time she had gotten her master's degree, not only was she more
qualified, but by then she enjoyed the benefits of an active paratransit
system that allowed her to go to and from the homes of clients. Her first
job was working part-time at an independent living center, a job that not
only required significant travel but one that also gave her the opportunity
to do some of her work from an office. That part-time job eventually
resulted in full-time employment, and it was there that Grace worked until
2003.

She then took a job with the state of Rhode Island as a rehabilitation
teacher. She did that job for six years, and what she found so amusing was
that this person who had never gotten the benefit of any formal
rehabilitation teaching was herself being asked to teach. She knew the
techniques that needed teaching; what she didn't know was much about the art
of teaching. She is thankful for the textbooks that taught her how to pass
along knowledge that she learned from her mother to others who needed to
learn how to make a bed, do laundry, and safely operate a hot stove.

While working she earned another master's degree, this one in rehabilitation
counseling, and it qualified her for another job that she holds today. She
works as a vocational rehabilitation counselor and has since 2009.

As soon as Grace got a job, she felt free to expand what she was doing and
begin giving back. When she said that she wanted to join the National
Federation of the Blind in 2000, the person she was talking with said, "Are
you sure? You don't have to!"

"My response was that I now have a job and I want to do something to give
back. I most certainly want to join the NFB. What I didn't realize at the
time was that I would gain so much more from being part of this movement.
>From the first meeting I attended, I was treated like an old friend." Grace
says that she was pretty shy, but she felt comfortable offering to help with
tasks. "Richard and Cathy Gaffney and other members were so welcoming that I
brought my boyfriend and my brother. They both accompanied me to the state
convention and joined on the spot."

What Grace finds so sad is that in all of her contact with the
rehabilitation system prior to employment, never did she find a role model
or anyone willing to discuss with her their own blindness. Never did the
people she worked with talk with her about blindness or put themselves front
and center as people she might want to be like. From what she observed,
those helping her, while well-intentioned, had problems dealing with their
own blindness and embracing alternative techniques that would let them be
comfortable with themselves and efficient in the things they did.

The lesson Grace has taken from this is that it is necessary not only for
her to teach attitudes and techniques but to instill in her clients a sense
that they can talk with her about blindness. She also hopes that the way she
lives her life and the mastery she has gained in living life as a blind
person will translate into her being a role model for those she serves.

Working on legislation is of particular interest, and the passage of a
parental rights bill has been immensely important to her. When she was
having her son, a social worker was sent to visit her at the hospital. "How
will you know when to feed him?" and "How will you give him medicine?" were
the kinds of questions that were repeatedly asked. Of particular concern was
that the social worker, learning that Grace and her husband Robert shared a
house with sighted parents, kept wanting to be reassured that the sighted
couple would be involved and went so far as to have a private conference
with them.

A second piece of legislation in which Grace takes pride allows for mail-in
election ballots. Having a good relationship with the secretary of state
means she has been a part of evaluating the ballot-marking machines that
were eventually purchased.

Knowing what a barrier transportation was for her, she serves on a public
advisory committee which seeks to improve transportation services to Rhode
Island residents. She is working on legislation to expand transportation to
all disabled Rhode Islanders.  She is quick to note that she is not the
primary person working on this legislation and that another member of the
Federation is actually spearheading the effort.

Like most busy people, there are times when Grace finds it difficult to
juggle all of the responsibilities she has. Of course there are the school
meetings to attend, and since her parents still do not speak English, she
accompanies them whenever they go to doctor appointments and acts as a
translator. "I am so lucky to have a job with some flexibility and with sick
time I can use when needed. When my mother worked in a factory, she did not
have this flexibility. I could only call her if there was a dire emergency.
They just wouldn't have known how to reach her. I am glad that I can now get
an occasional call or text when my son needs something."

When not otherwise engaged, Grace likes to read, knit, and take long walks
outside. "I love the peace that comes in being outside with nature-it is me
being me on my time." She also admits to being somewhat addicted to Netflix,
a pleasure that she and her husband share together. She enjoys playing Uno
with her nieces and again finds herself tremendously grateful for the
contributions of Louis Braille in her life.

"I think my most important role in the Federation is to be a good listener,
accept people where they are, and offer myself as a role model for those
looking to be happy, to be productive, and to feel good about themselves.
Sometimes life has meant hard work, but people need to see that often that
is what it takes, and the rewards are well worth the effort."

----------

[PHOTO CAPTION: Barbara Manuel]


Barbara Manuel: Blind Entrepreneur, Proud Mother and Grandmother, and
Activist


Barbara Manuel was raised in the small Alabama town of Citronelle, about
thirty miles north of Mobile. She has retinitis pigmentosa but did not know
or encounter any blind people growing up, so she simply coped with her
vision loss the best she could throughout her education in the local public
schools. Her coping mechanisms included copying questions and assignments
from close friends rather than trying to read the blackboard. Despite some
struggles, she remembers being an average student.

In her early twenties, Barbara took advantage of job training at the E.H.
Gentry facility operated by the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind in
Talladega to learn medical clerical work. When work in that field was no
longer available, she took her first job in the Randolph-Sheppard vending
program, working for another vendor that she met through an RP support
group. After six years, a snack-bar location at the Mobile City Garage
became available. Ten years later, an opportunity to run a full cafeteria at
the University of South Alabama Nursing School arose. Barbara and her
employees served breakfast and lunch daily, and she also took advantage of
catering opportunities, which she enjoyed immensely. Finally, Barbara
obtained her current location at the United States Coast Guard Aviation
Center in Mobile. She now manages seventeen employees and runs an operation
that serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner 365 days a year, as well as
maintaining the facility's seventy-two sleeping quarters. She is proud that
she often receives compliments about the food and facilities.

Barbara first learned about the National Federation of the Blind through a
contact from her days at E.H. Gentry. That friend convinced her to attend an
affiliate convention in Mobile sometime in the mid-1980s, which she says,
"Changed everything." She became the chapter president in Mobile in around
1989 and served in that capacity for eleven years, while also rotating on
and off the affiliate board of directors. After stepping down as Mobile
chapter president, Barbara remained active and rose to affiliate vice
president, which was the position she held when the late Joy Harris stepped
down for health reasons in 2017.

Under Barbara's leadership, the affiliate was successful in getting parental
rights legislation enacted in 2019. "I was so proud when we went to the
governor's signing of that initiative," she says. "When we can pull
together, the sky's the limit."

Barbara is proud of what she has been able to accomplish with a relatively
small but growing team. "Everyone can do something, even if it's just make a
phone call," she says. At the same time, "I always tell my members that we
need each of them, and we need every blind person in Alabama to join and be
an active part of our movement." The affiliate is currently engaged in a
long-running battle with the state over accessible absentee voting, which
has been a struggle because the secretary of state did an about-face on
supporting it, even though military and overseas voters can submit absentee
ballots electronically. Because of her work in this area, Barbara has also
become a member of The League of Women Voters. She is grateful to Lou Ann
Blake and the late Scott LaBarre for their assistance and is determined to
keep up the fight.

Barbara also serves on the board of the National Association of Blind
Merchants, and in 2022 she was elected to the National Board of Directors.
When she is not engaged in Federation activities, she enjoys spending time
with her son and daughter-in-law, granddaughter, and two
great-granddaughters. She also enjoys traveling with her best friend, whom
she has known since they were in the first grade.

Reflecting on the character of our movement, Barbara recently said: "The
National Federation of the Blind strives to embrace one common thread that
is tightly woven throughout our movement: 'blindness.' We are a close-knit
family, and it's our goal to create a place for every blind individual, from
every walk of life." 

----------

[PHOTO CAPTION: John Miller]


Saying Thank You and Encouraging Further Accessibility


by John Miller

>From the Editor: John Miller is on the cutting edge when it comes to working
in a competitive field and bringing all kinds of innovative resources to get
what he needs to do his job with distinction. He drafted this piece as a way
to acknowledge the much-needed accessibility by one software company and to
help us continue to develop strategies to determine how to make such
practices widespread. Here is what he says:

As a minority who doesn't bring large numbers to the marketplace, we must
work hard to figure out how to increase the number of devices we can use
productively and with the same ease as our sighted peers. To employers we
offer ourselves as true competitors capable of bringing as much to our jobs
as our sighted colleagues. When it comes to motivation, brains, and
education, we do well, but when the technology used in our workplace is
either unusable or so inefficient that its use detracts significantly from
our work product, the challenges are formidable.

How do we go about convincing technology developers and distributors,
especially those who deal in hardware and software, to design it in such a
way that it is efficiently usable without vision? Perhaps of equal
importance, how do we thank those who have made or improved their products
so that they meet the standard? Beyond writing a note of personal thanks,
how do we express to the broader community the significance of what has been
done?

I have worked in the field of electrical engineering and signal processing
for over ten years, having gotten my PhD in electrical and computer
engineering. In my work career I have held jobs at Qualcomm, Nokia, and
University of California San Diego. I currently work at a defense contractor
in San Diego, California. In all of these jobs, I have struggled to get
material I can read and interpret nonvisually. A piece of software I use
that is essential to my job is MATLAB from MathWorks, and recently its
developers have taken significant steps that enhance my ability to use it
and hence my productivity on the job. Using MATLAB, I can generate plots and
prototype engineering solutions. I contacted MathWorks about a problem in
their software for blind users who used the JAWS screen reader. MathWorks
scheduled a one-hour meeting in Microsoft Teams to discuss the problem with
me. MathWorks invited me to be a member of their newly formed Community
Access Board. I reported the problem in July 2022. I verified the MathWorks
fix is working well in January 2023.

I wish to ask other blind individuals what software applications they are
using to succeed in the workplace? There is an opportunity to form a
relationship between the blind community and the authors of these software
applications.

I conclude with what may have been better placed at the beginning of this
article: my goals for writing and asking that it be published. I want to
thank MathWorks, and equally important, I want to figure out how to thank
other companies when they do the right thing. I want to go beyond making the
moral case that what they have done is good and demonstrate that there are
tangible reasons why making products efficiently accessible is in the
interest of business, government, education, and any other entity that
offers products and services to the public. So my article is an open
invitation for the sharing of good ideas, new paradigms, and innovative
approaches we may come upon if together we all put our minds to this most
important of tasks.

----------

[PHOTO CAPTION: Matt Langland]


Disability Intersections: Blindness and Autism


by Matt Langland

>From the Editor: This article originally appeared in the Spring Issue of the
Minnesota Bulletin, the newsletter of the National Federation of the Blind
of Minnesota. It challenges us to look beyond blindness and to embrace
others who have disabilities that also need attention and understanding.
Here is the way it was introduced:

(Editors' note: This is the winning entry in the Metro Chapter's essay
contest held earlier this year. Matt Langland serves, among other roles, as
a member of our state legislative committee).

I was born sixteen weeks premature in June 1986. When I was a few months
old, it was discovered that I had Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP). While a
small amount of vision in my right eye was saved, I am legally blind. When I
was about six months old, the teacher of blind students came to visit with
my parents and started conducting home visits with me. My mom researched as
much about blindness as she possibly could and attended her first NFB
convention in 1987 to learn about blindness.

Upon learning I was considered a blind person around three or four, it did
not bother me that much since I had usable vision. Another funny thing was
happening, though. I was also strange in other ways.

Not only was I blind, but other interesting behaviors were appearing. From
when I was as young as I can remember, I developed an obsession with vacuum
cleaners. This obsession eventually slowly wore off when I started school. I
would also get bent out of shape and throw temper tantrums when plans
changed or things did not go exactly as I wanted. I liked routines and
things to stay the same, and if they did not, that would upset me. I would
get upset at the silliest little things like plans changing unexpectedly.

Interacting with kids my own age sometimes felt forced. My mom had a few
birthday parties for me when I was young, inviting kids from pre-school or
day care whom I did know, and I struggled to play with them, as I preferred
to be antisocial.

By the time I entered kindergarten, the main issue to be dealt with was my
blindness. I was starting to learn both Braille and print. I relied mostly
on enlarged print for my schoolwork, and I would read some books for fun in
Braille. Since my vision was quite usable and I could read print, I decided
at this point that I was only visually impaired, not blind. My mom tried to
tell me that I was legally blind and that I should really consider myself
blind, but I was insistent that, because I could see something, I was not
blind.

Teachers made sure I got all the accommodations I needed, like explaining
everything written on the board. I continued to proceed through elementary,
middle, and high school this way.

I continued to find strange new obsessions and preoccupations throughout
elementary school. I started spending my free time listening to the local
radio station, KTRF. I started memorizing the phone numbers for about every
business in town. A few times I would call the businesses after hours to see
if they had answering machines and see what they said. I never had any
reason to call any of the places; I just liked memorizing phone numbers. In
fact, I did not want to talk to anyone on the phone. I had a phone phobia of
sorts. If I had to talk on the phone to anyone, I would tense up, my throat
would dry out, and my voice would lock up and start shaking when I attempted
to talk. It was not until I got into high school that I started conquering
this fear of talking on the phone.

I had other obsessions, such as walking through the city campground on a
nightly basis all summer so I could observe the campers. I also continued to
struggle when plans changed or my planned routine did not pan out as hoped.

In 1996 my mom attempted to take me to my first NFB convention in Anaheim,
California. She would attend meetings for parents while I attended kids'
camp. She thought it would be a great experience for me in terms of learning
more about blindness and meeting positive blind role models. I had
absolutely no interest. On the first day she tried to drop me off at kids'
camp, I was so scared that I was crying and screaming out of fear of the
unknown. I was to go off with all these people, knowing none of them, and
make a day of it, taking the train from Los Angeles down to San Diego to
visit an aquarium among other activities. I was still in the mindset that I
was visually impaired, not blind, and I had no interest in the convention.
Since I had just turned ten, it was out of character for a child of my age
to be throwing a temper tantrum over having to leave my mother's side for a
day. I can only think what the people around me must have been thinking.

NFB philosophy says blind children can have all the same opportunities as
sighted children and nothing should hold them back. This incident made me
look like a poorly socialized blind child and made my mother feel like she
had failed. Other kids my age would just say, "Bye, Mom, see you later." I
did not. I could not handle being with unfamiliar people in unfamiliar
places. I was too afraid of something bad happening when nobody I was
comfortable with was around and the fear of trying to interact with new
people.

In about fourth or fifth grade, a year or two after the NFB convention
incident, my mom approached me and said she had read an article and figured
out I had something called Asperger's, now commonly referred to as Autism
Spectrum Disorder. I had never heard of this before, and I remember hating
the sound of the word as being my first reaction. My mom explained that this
was why I had strange obsessions, liked routines, did not like change of
plans, and did not interact well with my peers. Now she would have more
understanding when I would lose it over a change in plan, and she could
understand my obsessions. It was immediately decided by my parents and
teacher of the blind that we would not mention this to teachers, write it up
in my IEP, or bring any attention to it in the school setting. It was
thought that teachers would be stressed enough to have a blind student in
their class. If we added autism to the mix, I would create unnecessary
stress on teachers. Besides, it did not really have any effect on my
academic abilities, only my social skills.

Through my K-12 school years, I had basically zero association with my peers
outside the school environment. My peers in school pretty much left me
alone. Luckily I never really got teased, picked on, or bullied. No girl in
high school ever tried to ask me out on a date, I never attended a school
dance, and nobody invited me to a gathering of any kind. I did not want to
participate in any of this anyway. I probably would have declined if asked.
Weirdness was attributed with blindness. My participation in Key Club and
the speech team was all I could handle.

Not wanting to leave the comforts of home made me decide to stay in Thief
River Falls after graduating high school and take classes at the local
community college. In the spring of my first year of college, I obtained a
job as a people greeter at Walmart. This was the perfect job for me while I
was in school. It gave me work experience, a social outlet interacting with
my co-workers, and customer service skills. I had no problem putting that
happy face on and saying, "Welcome to Walmart" in a friendly tone. Little,
small talk conversation was never a problem for me, but developing any
long-lasting friendship or getting to know people my own age on a deeper
level just did not exist. I worked with a lot of fellow college students at
Walmart and even had classes with some of them, so it really helped me learn
to be better socialized.

Towards the end of finishing my associate's degree, I recall a conversation
with my parents where autism got brought up. They indicated it was still an
issue I had to deal with. I said I did not understand why, since I function
fine on a day-to-day level. My dad said, "Name a person in their early
twenties, like you, who has absolutely zero close friends." It was sort of a
revelation in that it made me think my autism was affecting me more than I
realized. I lived at home with my parents, so I received all my social and
emotional support through them. I knew that blindness was my visible
disability where I would need accommodations for the rest of my life. It
dawned on me that I needed to become more independent than I was. These
things were partially due to being autistic but also due to lack of
confidence as a blind person. I needed to build my own friend circle.

I decided the answer to building my independence skills and building myself
a social life was training at BLIND, Inc. While in training, I was able to
attend Day at the Capitol and Washington Seminar. I could take my strong
interest in politics and in blindness, an issue that impacted me personally,
and I could combine them to advocate for other blind people. I jumped in and
have never looked back.

Thanks to the support of the National Federation of the Blind, I found the
confidence to do things I could have only dreamed of, such as live
independently and obtain my bachelor's degree in social science, which I was
not sure I ever wanted to do after my associate's. I also added a master's
in advocacy and political leadership. I also thank the Federation for giving
me a social life and a place to feel welcome when there are so few places I
have ever fit in.

Still, very few people are aware I am on the autism spectrum except for my
immediate family and a few close friends. It is not something I advertise.
To this day, it is my thought that I got a pass on my social skills in
school, as teachers and peers attributed my social oddities to my blindness
while not realizing there might have been something more to it. If I were
just autistic and not blind, the autism may have needed to be addressed in
school, or maybe my parents would have figured out I was on the autism
spectrum sooner. I believe this may still be the case in some social
situations today. How much social awkwardness can be attributed to blindness
and how much is related to being autistic is a question I do not have an
answer for. Another question to explore is: How many autistic people are
there in which another disability such as blindness is masking their autism
like mine did for many years?

In the NFB we are starting to talk more about multiple disabilities and
people labeling themselves as both blind and autistic. I am glad to see the
conversation starting since this secret is something I have had difficulty
sharing and have covered up for a long time. Instead of jumping to
conclusions in connecting every single little social struggle to a poorly
socialized blind person like we sometimes have a tendency to do, maybe we
should ask ourselves what other hidden disabilities or struggles one may be
having besides blindness. These questions do not have black and white
answers, and, as we in the National Federation of the Blind further explore
the conversation around blindness, autism, and multiple disabilities, I
would love to be a part of the conversation.

----------

[PHOTO CAPTION: Rishika Kartik]


Allyship and Inclusivity


by Rishika Kartik

>From the Editor: This article is taken from Future Reflections, a magazine
for the parents of blind children. It appeared in the 2022 convention issue,
Volume 41. Here is the way Debbie Stein introduced it:

For the past several years Rishika Kartik has built strong connections with
the blind community. She leads art activities as a volunteer at the Colorado
Center for the Blind, and she conducts art workshops with blind and
low-vision students from the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind (CSDB)
and in school districts across the state. In 2019 she received a two-year
grant to expand her work from Arts in Society, a Colorado foundation that
supports arts programs in underserved communities. Rishika has the
distinction of being the youngest person ever to receive an Arts in Society
grant. At the time her grant was awarded she was fourteen years old!

Rishika and her father attended their first face-to-face National Federation
of the Blind Convention in New Orleans. In this article Rishika reflects on
her experiences.

Percussive cane taps accompany cheerful greetings and chatter. Braille dots
adorn the pages of pamphlets, and enthusiastic "talking signs" guide people
to their destinations. People of all ages, identities, and perspectives
share stories, coming together from around the world.

In July I attended the National Federation of the Blind's National
Convention, the largest gathering of blind people globally. Convention is an
event that involves training, support, and information-sharing for the blind
community. It facilitates human connection and inspires people to lead full,
independent lives.

As a sighted person attending this convention, I grappled with how to
support a community I care about as an ally. As an Indian American woman, I
understand the value of affinity groups and identity-specific events. Being
surrounded by people who share your identity allows you to be fully yourself
and feel understood in a distinct way. I did not want to prevent others from
having this experience by attending as a sighted person. I am grateful for
the way the National Federation of the Blind has welcomed me with open arms.

Volunteering with the blind and visually-impaired community over the past
four years has taught me that everyone must be involved in issues around
accessibility and diversity. Just as men can amplify a feminist message of
gender equality, sighted people can become part of the blindness movement
and work to dismantle ableist narratives. The key is to speak out by
listening, to maintain an open mind and hand the microphone to those around
you. As allies we inevitably will make mistakes. But by learning from our
mistakes and engaging in open dialogue with those around us, we can work
together to build inclusive communities.

The National Convention emphasizes that blindness, while challenging,
unlocks a unique way to live life. Rejecting the notion of conforming to
societal expectations allows people to find creative ways of doing what they
love, from cooking and playing an instrument to studying and traveling.
Unfortunately, a lack of communication between sighted people and the blind
community often leads to uninformed design.

Disability advocate and design strategist Liz Jackson describes uninformed
design products as a "disability dongle": "a well-intended, elegant, yet
useless solution to a problem we never knew we had." Technology, such as
VoiceOver and Braille displays, has been instrumental in promoting
inclusion. However, designing expensive technology without spending time
with the blind community creates products that blind people may not
necessarily want or need.

A common example of misguided solutions is the movement to develop complex
sensors to help blind people detect objects and obstacles. Designers often
pursue these technologies "in order to eliminate the need for the white
cane." "We don't need three-hundred-dollar gadgets to reinvent the wheel,"
staff members at the Colorado Center for the Blind say. "The cane has served
as a valuable, affordable, and useful navigation tool for years."

Another instance of impractical technology is the development of artificial
intelligence initiatives that transform 2D visual images into sound, with
various tones representing objects in the picture. In-depth training is
required before a person can interpret these sounds. The system is not
intuitive for everyday use.

Disability dongles illustrate a broader societal issue. Sometimes would-be
allies don't make enough effort to listen to the perspectives of blind
people before they act. Sometimes, out of their fear of doing the wrong
thing, they do not act at all.

Haben Girma, the first deafblind person to graduate from Harvard Law School,
affirms, "Disability drives innovation. When you think about new ways of
accessing information, new ways for people to connect and engage with each
other, you're going to find yourself designing the next best thing." By
practicing authentic allyship people create accessible solutions that help
everyone. SMS texting was invented by Finnish inventor Matti Makkonen and
his team to help deaf people communicate. It now makes life more convenient
for all of us. One of the first working typewriters, technology we use
daily, was created by an Italian inventor, Turri; he wanted an easier way
for his blind lover to send him letters.

Small changes, too, can create universally beneficial accessibility
solutions. When designing the website where I post my blog, mentors of mine
encouraged the use of high-contrast colors and hierarchical text for users
with low vision and dyslexia. These changes made the site more user friendly
and aesthetically pleasing for all visitors. Using alternative text to
describe images optimizes Google's search engine, allowing people to find
webpages much more quickly using keywords.

When I volunteered with the Educational Support Group at the NFB, we created
tactile models to explain complex mathematical concepts. This work helped me
realize that I, a sighted person, am not a visual learner. Now I often
create 3D representations when I struggle in math, which helps me understand
calculus concepts much more quickly. Unfortunately, the standard educational
model still only accounts for visual learning, isolating many people from
success.

My friends with low vision often express frustration with being forced to
use their unreliable vision instead of being given accessible learning
alternatives. In order to inspire creativity and build confidence, kids need
the message that there is no single "right" way to do things. This message
can start in the classroom. Providing Braille materials and embracing unique
learning styles are imperative in ensuring that every person receives the
education they deserve.

The NFB National Convention taught me that everyone is impacted by issues
around accessibility, and everyone can take part in creating solutions.
Rather than forcing "solutions" within an existing paradigm, disability
inclusion is an opportunity to revolutionize current ideas. By abandoning
conventional norms and exploring new ways of doing things, we unlock a new
way of life.


Sources


https://blog.ai-media.tv/blog/why-designing-for-accessibility-helps-everyone

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2019/4/30/18523006/disabled-wheelchair-acce
ss-ramps-stair-climbing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bC7Mvy7Vn4

---------

[PHOTO CAPTION: Ramona Walhof]


Touring and Facilities


by Ramona Walhof

>From the Editor: Ramona has been in the Federation since before I came, and
she has always been a strong and dedicated leader. In recent years she has
taken fewer leadership roles, but it is obvious she is living well, having
fun, and experiencing new things to share. Here is her most recent
contribution:

Many blind people travel and enjoy it immensely. Still, I hear comments
about boring museums where everything is behind ropes or under glass. And
indeed, I have experienced this and the frustration that goes with it. On
the other hand, many who operate museums and tours are making an honest
effort to make museums enjoyable and informative to the blind and other
disabled people. Just for fun, I will share some of my most enjoyable
experiences, many of which are in other countries.

After retirement, I have been fortunate to be able to take several trips. I
was delighted to find a friend who was eager to cruise with me through the
Panama Canal. There were at least six stops along the way. We chose three
tours, all of which turned out to be high points of our trip. Going through
the canal was a very interesting experience. Ship personnel described the
canal and the equipment as the ship went up through the locks, across the
manmade lake, and down the locks on the other side. There was definitely a
lot to see visually, but not only were there good descriptions, but also the
comments of fellow travelers provided information and interest. For example,
there were many exclamations about the movements of the workers on the
narrow islands between the ship lanes in the canal. I could hear the voices
of some of them. It took all day to complete the passage across the Isthmus,
and my friend and I went to various parts of the ship for perspective from
high above and closer to the work outside. My friend had difficulty keeping
track of the ship layout, so I was the guide for getting around the ship.

At the time of this trip in 2016, they were just opening new lanes across
the canal to accommodate larger ships. We were fortunate to do this on a
sunny day, and most of the passengers were outside enjoying the
refreshments, the views, the other people, the information, and, of course,
taking pictures.

In Cartagena, Colombia, we decided to take a jewelry-making class. I was a
little concerned that there would be someone standing in front of the group
saying: Do this; do that. I was very glad to have underestimated this class.
Each student was given silver wire and taught to make a necklace, a ring,
and earrings. Each traveler was assigned a Colombian jewelry school student
as an instructor. I spoke only a few words of Spanish, and my instructor
must have known about that much English, but it did not matter! She handed
me the materials and guided my hands when I needed it. I completed the
projects and was very pleased with them. We chose unfinished Colombian
emeralds for each piece of jewelry, and I had Christmas presents for my
daughter and daughter-in-law.

After visiting the sales room to admire much more elaborate jewelry, we
toured the jewelry school. As we passed the machine used to form silver
wire, we were offered the opportunity to try it out. I took an uneven piece
of silver and passed it through the machine several times. Each time it came
through narrower and smoother. In order to give others a turn, I did not
finish the process, but it was fascinating to learn how very fine silver
thread can be made from a lump of silver. I would never have known without
this experience. And of course, I have a picture in my iPhone to show my
friends and family at home.

In Costa Rica we joined a bus tour to a McCaw reserve. Upon arrival we had
the opportunity to walk from one flock of birds to another. We were asked
not to talk when we were near the birds because they can learn human speech,
and it was desirable to keep them wild. When people came near, each flock
would become very loud, showing a lot of interest in the people. Flocks of
birds were kept separate to prevent cross mating. This reserve was to care
for animals that were not able to remain in the wild for various reasons.
Some native birds would later be released. We passed very near a jaguar and
other animals native to the tropics. I found this visit much more meaningful
than most zoos in this country because there were many animals and we were
much closer to them.

In southwest Mexico we joined a tour to a large private farm. They explained
to us that there was no medical facility nearer than fifty miles, so they
grew many herbs to treat a variety of conditions. I was offered the
opportunity to touch and smell many different herbs and plants. At one point
a group of us were led to the kitchen where a grandma was frying tortillas.
As we watched, someone placed a piece of paper in my hand and soon a hot
tortilla. After another minute or two, someone plopped a gob of refried
beans on top of the tortilla. Then I was expected to roll it up and eat it.
It was delicious! The kitchen was primitive; people were friendly; and I had
a delightful experience. We had the opportunity to examine rugs, blankets,
baskets, etc., made by those living and working at the farm. We even had a
sample as they said to taste some liquor from the "big blue cactus."

When my oldest granddaughter completed her junior year in high school, I
decided we should take a family cruise before they all began to scatter. We
debated whether to go to Australia or the Mediterranean. But the kids chose
the Mediterranean. My daughter and I flew to Madrid while other family
members made other choices for their first stops. We all joined back
together in Barcelona. The music in Spain is everywhere, and we enjoyed it.
There were blind people working in stands around the city and traveling on
the subways. ONCE is a very well-funded agency for the blind. They are proud
of their museum for the blind, and we visited. They have three sections: one
on history, one on Braille production, and one showing models of famous
buildings from around the world. The people were very friendly, and it is
very much a hands-on place, a most enjoyable day.

Our cruise took us to Gibralter at the southern tip of Spain. People looking
at Africa across the narrow straight commented on the weather and the
terrain. The most memorable part of that stop was the monkeys or small apes
who live there. A colony of three hundred are wild animals, but are looked
after just the same. We were admonished not to reach out to them, but all of
my grandchildren had a monkey come to them. Their parents were rather
concerned, but the kids loved it. The monkeys passed very near all of us.
They know they are protected.

We visited an olive farm near Marseille and many spots in Italy. One of my
granddaughters found an iPhone app with a great deal of information about
the Coliseum in Rome, including who sat in which locations, and where the
gladiators were allowed to go and more. We could check it all out as long as
our feet could last. As we walked from the Coliseum through the tunnel to
the Spanish Steps, we found people playing accordians just like in Madrid
and Barcelona.

I will not bore you like someone showing two hundred slides of a trip, but I
could tell of many other events, to say nothing of food and people and
shopping.

There are blind-friendly places in the United States as well. When my
children were small, we lived in Des Moines, Iowa. We visited the Living
History Farms there, where they showed how agriculture in Iowa was in 1840,
1880, and 1920. They showed equipment and buildings from each of those
times, and it was all hands-on. I hope it is still as friendly.

There are also mixed experiences. I have visited several different parts of
the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. Some are much more meaningful than
others. When I went, I wished I could have stayed for a week and shown some
curators how to improve their displays, which would not have been difficult.
I am looking forward to more and better opportunities of this kind.

----------

[PHOTO CAPTION: Tracy Soforenko]


Kenneth Jernigan Convention Scholarship


by Tracy Soforenko

>From the Editor: Tracy is a member of our National Board of Directors and is
the president of the National Federation of the Blind of Virginia. He is
also the chairman of the Kenneth Jernigan Fund, and it is in this capacity
that he writes:

Have you always wanted to attend an NFB annual convention but have not done
so because of the lack of funds? The Kenneth Jernigan Convention Scholarship
Fund invites you to make an application for a scholarship grant. Perhaps
this July you too can be in the Hilton Americas-Houston enjoying the many
pleasures and learning opportunities at the largest and most important
yearly convention of blind people in the world.

The three biggest ticket items you need to cover when attending an NFB
national convention are the roundtrip transportation, the hotel room for a
week, and the food (which tends to be higher priced than at home). We
attempt to award additional funds to families, but, whether a family or an
individual is granted a scholarship, this fund can only help; it won't pay
all the costs. In recent years the grants have been $600 for individuals.

We recommend that you find an NFB member as your personal convention mentor,
someone who has been to many national conventions and is able to share
money-saving tips with you and tips on navigating the extensive agenda in
the big hotel. Your mentor will help you get the most out of the amazing
experience that is convention week.


Who is eligible?


Active NFB members blind or sighted who have not yet attended an in-person
NFB national convention because of lack of funding are eligible to apply. If
you have attended a convention virtually but have never attended an
in-person convention, you are still eligible.


How do I apply for funding assistance?


This year we will be accepting applications online. Since applications must
be completed in a single session online, we strongly recommend you prepare
your responses in a document, and then cut and paste your responses into the
application form. The application form does not support complex formatting,
so we recommend avoiding formatting such as bullet points and fonts/styles.

Effective January 1, 2023, the application form can be found at the
following link:
https://nfb.org/form/kenneth-jernigan-convention-scho?q=form%2Fkenneth-jerni
gan-convention-scho

The application will ask for the following information:

*	Contact information: Include your full name and both your primary
phone where you can be contacted by your state president and your mobile
phone you might use at convention, if available.
*	Please include your mailing address and, if you have one, your email
address. If you don't have an email address, please consider if there is a
friend or chapter member who might be able to assist with email
correspondence.
*	State affiliate/chapter information: Include your state affiliate,
your state president, chapter, and chapter president, if you attend a
chapter.
*	Mentor information: Include your personal convention mentor and
provide that person's phone number.
*	Funding request: Include your specific request and explain how much
money you need from this fund to make this trip possible for you. We suggest
you consult with other members to make a rough budget for yourself.
*	Essay questions to explain why this is a good investment for the
NFB: 

*	How do you currently participate in the Federation?
*	Why do you want to attend a national convention?
*	What would you receive?
*	What can you share or give?
*	Any special circumstances you hope the committee will take into
consideration.

If you cannot apply online, you can still apply by writing a letter to your
state affiliate president answering the above questions. This letter should
be emailed to your state affiliate president. Once you have decided you will
apply, please contact your state president in person or by phone to request
his or her help in obtaining funding. Be sure to tell the state affiliate
president when to expect your application will be submitted and mention the
deadline.

Once your application has been submitted, it will be provided to your state
president via email. It is still your responsibility to contact your
affiliate president. He or she must email a president's recommendation
directly to the Kenneth Jernigan Convention Scholarship Fund Committee at
kjscholarships at nfb.org <mailto:kjscholarships at nfb.org> . Your president must
email the recommendation no later than the deadline of April 15, 2023. If
you have applied using other than the online form, the state affiliate
president must email both the recommendation and the application letter.


Notification of Award


If you are chosen to receive this scholarship, you will receive a letter
with convention details that should answer most of your questions. The
committee makes every effort to notify winners by May 15, but you must do
several things before that to be prepared to attend if you are chosen:

*	Make your own hotel reservation. If something prevents you from
attending, you can cancel the reservation. (Yes, you may arrange for
roommates of your own to reduce the cost).
*	Register online for the entire convention, including the banquet, by
May 31.
*	Find someone in your chapter or affiliate who has been to many
conventions and can answer your questions as a friend and mentor.
*	If you do not hear from the committee by May 15, then you did not
win a scholarship this year.


Receiving the Award


At the convention, you will be given a debit card or credit card loaded with
the amount of your award. The times and locations to pick up your card will
be listed in the letter we send you. The committee is not able to provide
funds before the convention, so work with your chapter and state affiliate
to assist you by obtaining an agreement to advance funds if you win a
scholarship and to pay your treasury back after you receive your debit or
credit card.


More Information


For additional information, please contact the chairman of the Kenneth
Jernigan Fund Committee, Tracy Soforenko, at kjscholarships at nfb.org
<mailto:kjscholarships at nfb.org>  or 410-659-9314, extension 2020.

Above all, please use this opportunity to attend your first convention on
the national level and join several thousand active Federationists in the
most important meeting of the blind in the world. We hope to see you in
Houston.

----------

[PHOTO CAPTION: Marc Maurer]


The Journey of Braille: From the Hands of the Creator to Earth Orbit


by Marc Maurer

>From the Editor: Late Monday afternoon, July 6, 2009, the ninety-eighth
anniversary of the birth of Jacobus tenBroek, President Maurer made brief
but thoughtful remarks about two seemingly disparate topics: Braille and
space travel. This is what he said:

People who are invited to watch a launch of a space shuttle at the Kennedy
Space Center occupy an observation site three miles from the launch pad. Two
of the Louis Braille Bicentennial Silver Dollars were scheduled for
inclusion in the payload of the shuttle to be launched on May 11, 2009.
Launch time might be as early as 2:01 and 56 seconds p.m.

The day before the launch the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) conducted a daylong seminar on aspects of exploration of space,
origins of the cosmos, and scientific discoveries made through the use of
the Hubble telescope. By focusing the Hubble telescope on the darkest parts
of the visible sky, the scientists have discovered thousands of galaxies
that have previously been unknown. The characteristics of the light observed
by this instrument have permitted cosmologists to look back in time more
than twelve billion years to a period near the beginning of time itself.
Furthermore, these observations lead to the conclusion not only that the
universe is expanding but that the rate of its expansion is accelerating. If
the rate of expansion is itself accelerating, there must be a reason. At
least part of the explanation lies in another astonishing conclusion that 96
percent of the matter and the energy of the universe is not observable
directly but only calculable based upon the influence that it has on the
observable segments of the universe. This 96 percent of non-observable mass
and energy is known as dark matter and energy. These are a few of the
scientific conclusions discussed during the course of the symposium.

It is said that in about 1890 a physicist made the claim that the important
theories of the physical universe had all been discovered and that the only
work remaining to be done was to make more accurate measurements. Within a
few years, however, Marie Curie had discovered radioactivity, and Albert
Einstein had written his special theory of relativity. Now, with the
observations from the Hubble telescope, we posit the existence of dark
energy and dark matter, and we hear from the scientists who study such
things that less than five percent of the universe we know is observable.
This description suggests that, despite the astonishing amount we have
learned about our universe, an enormous quantity is still to be discovered.

I reflect about this when I think about what has been said about blindness,
about blind people, and about our capacity for intellectual effort. Too many
people believe that everything worth knowing has already been learned about
us, but we know better. We know that our horizons have been artificially
restricted, and we postulate that they will be expanding at an accelerating
rate to encompass fields of comprehension beyond everybody's wildest
imaginings.

An astronaut came to tell us about the rigors of her training to become a
traveler in space. The plan for her initial ascent is that she will travel
to the International Space Station sometime in the spring of 2010. This
statement is awe-inspiring, and it stimulates contemplation of romantic
adventure. However, Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger told us that much of her
training was hard, grueling work. She was trained to survive in the most
hostile environments, and she was put to the most demanding tests.
Achievement is frequently composed of the most romantic dreams and very hard
work.

The space shuttle itself has three engines. It is launched with the aid of
two solid rocket boosters. Officials of the Kennedy Space Center told us
that at the time of launch 400,000 gallons of water are pumped onto the
launch pad to diminish the noise and shock generated by the launch. Anybody
within 800 feet of the launch pad would be killed by the heat. Anybody
within 4,000 feet of the launch pad would be killed by sound, they said.

When the time for launch came, we were three miles away. When the shuttle
began its climb, we were told that fuel was being consumed at 11,000 pounds
per second. By the time we could no longer hear the sound of the shuttle, it
had reached a height of several miles, on its way to orbit at 240 miles
above the Earth.

The Louis Braille commemorative coin-representing knowledge, representing
learning, representing the desire to join in the excitement of life-was
lifted from the Earth on a journey to a place higher than almost anybody has
ever been at a speed faster than almost anybody has ever traveled. Braille
has shown the way, and some of us will follow.

----------

[PHOTO CAPTION: John Kalkanli]


Reading to Succeed: How the Power of Braille Literacy Opened New Avenues for
Interpreting My World


by John Kalkanli

>From the Editor: John lives in Texas and intended to have this article for
the January issue to celebrate World Braille Day. It took him a bit longer
to write the article, but his is one of many valuable stories we should read
about the power of Braille and the way it empowers blind people with another
tool in our efforts to reap the benefits of literacy. Here is John's
article:

Literacy is an essential element of success since it is essential in so much
of our communication. The greatest gift one can hope for is being able to
interpret his or her surroundings. My life took a swift turn for the better
after being exposed to the Braille Code. I am grateful a system of reading
and writing created for the blind has been created and that I understand how
to use it. We are often told that it is not easy to learn since using the
fingers to distinguish between the dots is required, however, this code
makes perfect sense once thoroughly studied and practiced.

I will never forget the feeling of joy that rushed in me when I began to
learn Braille. Before being exposed, my self-confidence was low. It seemed
insurmountable for me to achieve the dreams I held of being the best I could
be. When my fingers were running through the dots on the paper, I wondered
if I would ever become proficient. Suddenly, I gained confidence in myself
and came to the realization that I could be productive and contribute to
society in my own way. Like most things worth doing, learning Braille meant
committing to work and practice. What kept me going was deeply reflecting on
the benefits it would bring if I could master it. As a result of my
determination and effort, I mastered this code and have become the
proficient reader I am today.

The most challenging part for me in learning Braille was when I was
introduced to the Nemeth Code used in mathematics. Since math is extremely
visual, it was very difficult to determine where the answers would be placed
when solving problems. The layout of math problems can sometimes be
different in Braille as in the case of long division or even the
presentation of a fraction, but it all makes sense once you realize that
there are minor differences in the format of math problems. I remember the
endless hours I spent trying to complete homework assignments on the Perkins
Brailler and becoming frustrated when I could not come up with a solution.
Even the signs of operation did not make sense to me at the time since there
are a variety. There were moments when I felt like giving up and like my
confidence was shattered. Luckily, that lasted only a short time because I
was motivated to keep trying by my grandmother. God bless her soul, she
encouraged me to stay motivated and keep learning. Even in those moments
where I felt lost, her presence kept me up. Those countless hours of
frustration eventually turned into moments of joy, and I began to appreciate
math for what it is as a result of my dear grandmother's support. I will
forever treasure the times when we would work problems together. Her
explanations through examples of objects enhanced my ability to comprehend
the rules of operation.

Learning the contractions and short forms used in Braille made the learning
experience more enjoyable. In the same way, I became more efficient. I
strongly believe that contractions are very useful when scanning through
articles to identify words. These contractions also save room when writing.
I feel that time is a key component of efficiency, and the less time I spend
figuring out words, the more time I can devote to really understanding what
I am reading that the author is trying to communicate. By coming to
understand the contractions quickly, I can also decode the spelling of most
words by picturing the word in my head just as print readers do.

When I went through the public school system, I was fortunate to work with a
vision teacher who instilled in me the importance of literacy. Over the
years, she introduced me to different ways in which Braille could represent
things I needed to know in addition to words, numbers, and symbols. I
learned about graphs, charts, maps, and other tactile graphics. As a result
of being exposed to them, I gained a thorough understanding of how
information can be presented. My teacher also kept me up-to-date as the
Braille Code changed. Like everything else, Braille has to evolve over time
to represent new symbols in ways that can be translated by a computer and
interpreted by we who read Braille in a way that is unambiguous. So I have
learned the Unified English Braille Code and can read it as well as the
United States Braille Code I learned as a child.

My world changed for the better when I was introduced to refreshable
Braille. Through the use of notetakers and Braille displays, I feel more
engaged with my environment while also increasing my efficiency. Each day I
am amazed by, and grateful for, the ways technology evolves in such a short
time, turning what seemed impossible into moments that now represent endless
opportunities. With today's digital age, a person can instantly send and
receive email right under their fingertips.

For me personally, refreshable Braille allowed me to further appreciate
works of literature in ways I could not simply through audio. Using Braille
I can vary my reading speed and allow myself time to see why one word was
used instead of another and to take the time to really understand both the
meaning and emotion of the writer.

To this day, I use refreshable Braille in my post-secondary education, and
it is making a huge difference in my learning. I am not sure what I would do
without it. While the speech from screen readers is useful, just relying on
them slows me down drastically because I have to listen to the words being
spoken and figure out what they mean. Using Braille and screen readers
together assists immensely in identifying spelling errors when writing
papers.

I am of the opinion that the value of Braille goes beyond education and
employment. It truly opens the door of independence and productivity. In the
same way, Braille is the key to knowledge.

Since I truly value Braille and what it stands for, I have decided to
undertake the journey of working towards a certification in Braille
transcribing. I am fully aware that there is insufficient Braille
instruction in schools, and children are not able to receive their materials
in a timely manner due to lack of resources. This is where I believe I can
make a significant contribution. Upon finishing the certification, my goal
is to produce educational materials for children so they are not left
behind. Acquiring this skill is a major stepping stone in developing one's
professional blueprint.

I also believe that promoting Braille literacy is essential in everyday
life. Whether or not you become fast, Braille will serve you well for
reading a label on a package, writing a reminder note, giving you the next
thought in a speech, or just making sure you get everything at the grocery
store. These may seem like small things, but they make the difference as to
how well and how easily one gets through life with confidence and
contentment.

----------


You Can Make a Difference 


Blind children, students, and adults are making powerful strides in
education and leadership every day across the United States. For more than
eighty years, the National Federation of the Blind has worked to transform
the dreams of hundreds of thousands of blind people into reality. With
support from individuals like you, we continue to provide powerful programs
and critical resources for decades to come. We sincerely hope you will plan
to be a part of our enduring movement by including the National Federation
of the Blind in your charitable giving and in your estate planning. It is
easier than you think.

 

With your help, the NFB will continue to:

*	Give blind children the gift of literacy through Braille.
*	Promote independent travel by providing free, long white canes to
blind people in need.
*	Develop dynamic educational projects and programs to show blind
youth that science and math careers are within their reach.
*	Deliver hundreds of accessible newspapers and magazines to provide
blind people the essential information necessary to be actively involved in
their communities.
*	Offer aids and appliances that help seniors losing vision maintain
their independence.


Plan to Leave a Legacy


The National Federation of the Blind legacy society, our Dream Makers
Circle, honors and recognizes the generosity and vision of members and
special friends of the National Federation of the Blind who have chosen to
leave a legacy through a will or other planned giving option. You can join
the Dream Makers Circle in a myriad of ways.

Fixed Sum of Assets

You can specify that a fixed sum of your assets or property goes to the
National Federation of the Blind in your will, trust, pension, IRA, life
insurance policy, brokerage account, or other accounts.

Percentage of Assets

You can specify that a percentage of your assets or property goes to the
National Federation of the Blind in your will, trust, pension, IRA, life
insurance policy, brokerage account, or other accounts.

Payable on Death (POD) Account

You can name the National Federation of the Blind as the beneficiary on a
Payable on Death (POD) account through your bank. You can turn any checking
or savings account into a POD account. This is one of the simplest ways to
leave a legacy. The account is totally in your control during your lifetime
and you can change the beneficiary or percentage at any time with ease.

Will or Trust

If you do decide to create or revise your will, consider the National
Federation of the Blind as a partial beneficiary.

Visit our Planned Giving webpage
(https://www.nfb.org/get-involved/ways-give/planned-giving) or call
410-659-9314, extension 2422, for more information.

Together with love, hope, determination, and your support, we will continue
to transform dreams into reality.


Ways to Contribute Now 


Throughout 2021, the NFB:

*	Sent nearly one thousand Braille Santa and Winter Celebration
letters to blind children, encouraging excitement for Braille literacy.
*	Distributed over five thousand canes to blind people across the
United States, empowering them to travel safely and independently throughout
their communities.
*	Delivered audio newspaper and magazine services to 126,823
subscribers, providing free access to over five hundred local, national, and
international publications.
*	Gave over six hundred Braille-writing slates and styluses free of
charge to blind users.
*	Mentored 232 blind youth during our Braille Enrichment for Literacy
and LearningR Academy in-home editions.

Just imagine what we'll do this year and, with your help, what can be
accomplished for years to come. Below are just a few of the many diverse,
tax-deductible ways you can lend your support to the National Federation of
the Blind.

Vehicle Donation Program

The NFB accepts donated vehicles, including cars, trucks, boats,
motorcycles, or recreational vehicles. Just call 855-659-9314 toll-free, and
a representative can make arrangements to pick up your donation. We can also
answer any questions you have.

General Donation

General donations help support the ongoing programs of the NFB and the work
to help blind people live the lives they want. You can call 410-659-9314 and
elect option 4 to donate by phone. Donate online with a credit card or
through the mail with check or money order. Visit our Ways to Give webpage
(https://www.nfb.org/get-involved/ways-give) for more information. 

Pre-Authorized Contribution

Through the Pre-Authorized Contribution (PAC) program, supporters sustain
the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind by making recurring
monthly donations by direct withdrawal of funds from a checking account or a
charge to a credit card. To enroll, call 410-659-9314, extension 2213, or
fill out our PAC Donation Form (https://www.nfb.org/pac) online.

If you have questions about giving, please send an email to outreach at nfb.org
<mailto:outreach at nfb.org>  or call 410-659-9314, extension 2422.

----------


NFB Pledge


I pledge to participate actively in the efforts of the National Federation
of the Blind to achieve equality, opportunity, and security for the blind;
to support the policies and programs of the Federation; and to abide by its
constitution.

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