Hello,
This is a blog with a difference, instead of my usual ramblings around mental health and young carers, today is an interview I conducted with an extraordinary man, Who despite his visual impairment, he still manages to volunteer online. Everything below is in his own words. I would like to thank Wayne, for agreeing to participate in this interview
Would you be able to introduce yourself?
My name is Wayne and I’m from Dewsbury in Yorkshire. I am a volunteer for many different charities and organisations including Youthnet.
* What type of visual impairment do you have?
I’m totally blind. I can only see light, but seeing light doesn’t give me any advantage over people who cannot see light.
* When were you first diagnosed/How long have you had this condition?
I was diagnosed when I was far too young to remember. I have always been blind but at first I think it was thought I wasn’t blind. I was given glasses but I broke them.
* What equipment do you have/use to help you day to day?(Computer, ect.)
I use a normal computer but it has a programme on it called Jaws, which reads the screen and says what keys I am pressing. I have a touch screen phone which has been adapted by Claria Vision. They make it talk, change the layout and put a tactile keyboard over the screen. There are holes where the buttons would be if it wasn’t a touch screen.
Education
* What type of school did you go to? (Mainstream, Specialist)
I went to mainstream schools for my entire school life.
* How did you find school? Was it difficult to make friends?
At school, I was confident and very assertive. I also did bad things which people found amusing. My personality would at times, make me the centre of attention. Other pupils wanted to be my friend because of my big personality. I think I was seen as a sort of leader.
* What help did you receive at school in lessons and exams?
My school had a visual impairment unit because a number of us were visually impaired. This meant there was a team of support workers who could support us in lessons. I was able to have support withdrawn from lessons where I didn’t want it. In exams I was given extra time. I didn’t do exams with everybody else. This was because I had a support worker who could describe diagrams, and a noisy braille, which other pupils may have found distracting.
* Was there anybody else at your school who you could relate with?
Yes, and I was quite lucky to have a number of them in my form. We had similar music interests. Blind people were transport to school by taxi and the journey was long. I got on with most people in my taxi so our journeys were lively.
* If you went to a mainstream school would you preferred to of gone to a specialist one?
I certainly would not have wanted to go to a special school. I am glad I didn’t go to a special school. I have encountered people who have been to special schools and they are different. They haven’t had much experience of people their age who can see. They are more suspicious of people who can see, and insecure about how they are perceived because of their visual impairment.
Personal Life
* Have you ever classed yourself as disabled?
I accept my disability. I don’t bring it up when socialising with people who either don’t know about it or don’t know how I am affected by it, but if they ask me about it I will answer their questions.
* If you we’re given the chance to have sight for a day. Would you take it? If so, what would you do?
I’d take it just to see what it was like to see and increase my understanding. I don’t know what I would do with it, but I think I would just want to try doing things that I usually need help with – simple things like shopping and riding a bike.
* How do you feel society views those with visual impairments?
I think society is sympathetic to people who are visually impaired. There are some people who think that visually impaired people need looking after, and should not be treated the same as other people. On the whole, people treat me the same as they would anybody else. In my experience, people think that because I’m blind, I need their help. That is good, because I would rather be offered help when I don’t need it, than not be offered help when I do need it.
* How would you change this?
The only part of this I would want to change are the people who don’t treat blind people the same as they treat other people. There are those who treat blind people differently due to inexperience. People like that will generally alter how they treat blind people for the better, when the blind people they are with give them a better understanding in a nice and considerate way. That is all that is needed. NO need to send them on awareness training or anything like that. Awareness training usually makes people worse anyway, because it tells them that there are all sorts of rules for practical tasks like guiding blind people that blind people don’t even know about. The other group treats blind people differently deliberately. They are nasty people who would rather bully, and discriminate against blind people and other minorities rather than befriend and include them. There are even parents of blind people who take advantage of their blindness by limiting their freedom. There are many people who believe that with a bit of education or awareness, those people will change. I disagree. Deliberate discrimination, bullying and abuse is not caused by lack of education, but by people choosing to be horrible. Those should be punished very severely so blind people can at least be satisfied that something has been done and those who treated them badly haven’t got away with it.
* The most important question of this interview has to be….Do you have a guide dog?
I don’t have a guide dog. I don’t want the commitments that come with looking after guide dogs. Also, my flat is not on the ground floor so that wouldn’t be good for a guide dog.
* What would you say your biggest challenge is?
In groups of people, people sometimes communicate visually and obviously I can’t see that.
* How do you overcome this?
I just try to participate as fully as I can.
* How do you travel around on a daily basis? Does your impairment makes this difficult?
Generally, I travel by taxi. I don’t travel on busses unless I am with somebody. I do however, travel independently by train. At the railway stations I use there are staff who will help me on and off the train. Bus stops don’t have staff. I don’t go anywhere on foot, except the dentist. All the places I would go are over the road, and the road is a junction with traffic coming from too many directions and the pavements not being directly opposite. Taxis don’t present any problems for me with my visual impairment unless I get a driver who won’t take me into a building he has parked near but not directly outside. Trains are only difficult if the assistant leaves me somewhere and doesn’t come back when the train arrives.
* Has your impairment/disability ever impacted on your mental health? (I.E depression, Anxiety, Anger/fury.)
Yes, though I never went to the doctor or asked for help. Basically, before I started volunteering I felt that my life had hit a dead end and had no purpose and so I had a lot of negative thoughts. At one time when I was younger, before I met my wife and we started living together, the future seemed too overwhelming to live through. My response is to think my way through these episodes, on the very rare occasions I experience them.
Voluntary work
* You volunteer for an online engagement charity by moderating a chatroom. What challenges do you face during this?
My main challenge while moderating chatrooms has always been the software. It is not the easiest software to use with speech software. When conflicts occur, people post messages very quickly and I cannot read them all while also trying to calm things down or if necessary, using the moderation tools. The old software was worse because I would accidentally click on the wrong name, or it would move all over the screen so I couldn’t read a group of messages. People don’t like it if I miss their messages, and if I miss several messages posted by the same person, the person may think I am deliberately ignoring them. I’m glad I don’t miss so many messages now.
* How do you overcome people trying to show you visual images?
That is tricky. If other people are in the room I wait for them to react and form my impressions of the images based on their reactions. If they are not, I try to get the person to provide some context to the images and then let that shape the discussion. Many people don’t know or haven’t always known I am blind.
* How long have you been volunteering at youthnet for?
Over 5 years and 9 months.
* How did you find out about this opportunity?
I wanted to expand my volunteering, so I went on Do-It and saw the opportunity there.
* How does this role fit in with your career?
Once upon a time, at the beginning of my volunteering, I was being taken to a taxi outside a train station, and the person who told me there asked me what I was going to do. I explained I was going to do some volunteering, and she said “do good”. Then I thought about what it would be to have a career in doing good, and I realised that there are so many different ways to do good. By moderating chat, I am doing good by helping people not to think about their problems and to just have fun for a few minutes. I think that socialising in chat can help people improve their social confidence.
