[Rehab] Seeking Stories of an Environmental Issue Impacting a Blindness-Related Institution

[Justin Salisbury]

Hi everyone,

As some here will know, I am working on a PhD in education so that I can hopefully help to train rehabilitation professionals one day. For a  school project, I want to see if I can find a story about something. I don't currently have enough material to move forward with a project on this, but you might be able to help me get there.

My hypothesis is that environmental issues can have disproportionate impacts on the blind community, including the institutions that provide services to us. I am thinking of institutions in a very broad sense, so that schools, training centers, VR agencies, guide dog schools, libraries for the blind, or even special disability housing developments could count as institutions. I could also use stories about things like air pollution affecting us disproportionately because we often live in places that allow us to be near public transit, which tend to be more polluted. That's real, too, and I could go that direction if I need to.

The biggest thing I need is examples of these issues with actual names of actual places. It's even better if you have newspaper articles or something that I can specifically reference, but even if your email is the only place that the story is documented, that can work. If the issue is resolved but someone remembers being part of advocating for change, even if it was forty years ago, that still counts.

I can tell stories in theoretical ways, but my professors want me to talk about examples. I don't have a lot of them, but I know they exist. For example, a school for the blind might have contaminated water and not have it get treated as a priority by the state water board because it's only blind kids in there. A special housing development for the blind might be built under a freeway in a neighborhood where the air is not safe or clean. A training center for the blind might be placed outside the city limits so that it's getting blind people away from the dangers of the city, but then it is close to agricultural crop dusting, where all the chemicals from the farms lead to the kids having asthma problems. It could be anything.

The best specific example I have right now is that the poor environmental health conditions at the school that Louis Braille attended in France led to him getting tuberculosis. It is a good one, but I need more.

Thank you in advance,

Justin

Justin MH Salisbury, MEd, NOMC, NCRTB
English Pronouns: He/Him/His
Email: President at Alumni.ECU.edu<mailto:President at Alumni.ECU.edu>
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-salisbury<https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-salisbury&source=gmail-imap&ust=1727538746000000&usg=AOvVaw0XtyTG9WXXQ8TWe6UeU4Nz>
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1786-2786

"Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter."
Chinua Achebe