Living as a Blind Person in the United Kingdom and the United States

At the state convention of the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado I was given the opportunity to share my experiences growing up as a blind child in England and how moving to Colorado for training has had an impact on my life.

Please watch my speech. I hope that for those of you who are new to blindness, whether you’ve lost your vision or are supporting a loved one through vision loss, you find hope in my words. And for those of us who have been doing this for a while, let us use this as encouragement to keep speaking up and changing the world.

Transcript

Julie Deden: If you don’t live in the US, you don’t really get great training as a blind person. But more than that we know a lot of people that live here don’t get, in the united states don’t necessarily get very good training either. But truly around the world it’s very different than it is for all of us as blind people who live in the United States. So our next agenda item is entitled perspectives from across the pond. This is with miss Holly Scott-Gardner who is currently a student at the Colorado Center for the Blind. And Holly is from the United Kingdom. So here is Holly.

Holly Scott-Gardner: Hello my Colorado federation family. I’ve been told by a few people at CCb that I have a pretty loud voice so I’m going to try not to shout too much into the microphone. They’re going to turn it down because of me. So thank you so much to everyone who’s played a part in organising this convention. It’s my first state convention and I’ve loved the energy and purpose that I’ve felt throughout the weekend. And it’s a real honour to have been asked to come up here and speak to you guys today.

When I saw the title of my presentation on the convention agenda I stopped for a moment. It’s asked me to share my thoughts from across the pond. What thoughts of mine, I asked myself, might people here find useful. So writing my notes for today was a bit of a struggle at times. There was so much I could tell you about my own life, and the lives of other blind people in the United Kingdom. Our experiences and stories are as diverse as those of all of yours and every story has value.

As a child I grew up knowing few blind people. At 8 months old my parents found out that I had Lebers Congenital Amaurosis, and I can only imagine how much of a shock my diagnosis was to them. My mother actually has a cousin who is blind, but she’d spent very little time with him as a child and so hadn’t learned very much about blindness. And I always hoped that I would meet him and still haven’t, so as an adult I am trying to connect with him. The only blind people I did know were children like myself. Blind adults were this…idea in my head. I didn’t know any, had no idea how they lived their lives, so I assumed they were basically sighted adults without cars. I guess my idea wasn’t all that wrong in the end.

The first time I met a blind adult was when my TVI took me to visit some. She’d always tried to give me a community of blind people within the area and the opportunity to connect with them. And she’d successfully built a network of blind children in the city. So off we went to visit some blind adults. I remember them being two older ladies, though perhaps they only seemed old because I was a child. In all honesty, I found their blindness quite boring, and spent the entire visit talking to their pet dog.

My childhood continued in much the same way. My TVI worked extremely hard not only to ensure I could access school life, but also to give me a taste of what life might be like once I was grown up. I, of course, took none of these things very seriously. The idea of being a grownup was so far from my life then it seemed laughable, but it’s a testament to the care and attention she paid her students that I both remember and now appreciate the things she taught me.

The reality is that then my blindness seemed inconsequential. I read braille and used a screen reader, but I also ran around outside, played games with my friends and all together disregarded the many rules the adults around me tried to set. I had a normal childhood, if such a thing exists.

I don’t remember the first time I heard words like advocacy, accessibility, or that eternally frustrating phrase which underpins disability discrimination legislation in the United Kingdom, reasonable adjustments. In truth I had discovered all these things before I ever had the words to define them.

By the time I was 16 I was almost single-handedly managing my own education. I’d been at a school for the blind for several years as unfortunately by the time I left primary school, remaining in my current environment was no longer an option. But at 16 I wanted more, more social opportunities, more freedom to go out and more time with my family. So I requested a change of school, and along with that I sent my TVI a very specific list of technology that I needed. Over the next few years I would learn many lessons in advocacy, one of the most important being every problem has a solution, and if you go into a situation with a solution in mind to the problem you are presenting, it’s much harder for anyone to tell you no.

This is what we must do as blind people. We must move beyond simply identifying the problems we are facing, because that is easy to do. We must take the harder step of finding solutions to those problems and then convince those in positions of power that implementing the solution is not unreasonable, that it will eliminate the problem and that ultimately it’s common sense. I know, this is much easier to say than to do.

When I was a child, I eventually realised that some people would look at me differently because of my blindness. Every time I was prevented from doing something with my peers, or was overlooked by adults I felt the sting of my blindness. But I was largely protected from that by my parents who nagged me about working hard in school, and my TVI and other teachers who told me to “do your homework next time,” and always made sure I had plenty of books to read. By the time I started university I realised that no matter how hard I worked, no matter what grades I was getting, or how well put together I appeared to be on the outside there were people who would only see my blindness, and more often than not those people would view it as a deficit. Every other student would show up to class knowing they’d be able to read the presentation and complete the work, in fact, I can’t imagine they even paid much thought to it. I, on the other hand, soon figured out which professors were going to give me access to the materials and which weren’t, and I knew that if I didn’t get access I was largely on my own. I was lucky to have a strong support system around me who believed in my right to an equal education, but even so the constant need to advocate and justify myself was frustrating and tiring.

There is a staggering amount of injustice in the world. Anger is a natural and often unavoidable response. But if we are to eliminate that injustice and make steps towards a more equitable future we must use that anger constructively. We must turn it into legislation that protects the rights of blind individuals, and all disabled people. In the UK, the equality act, the legislation that protects the rights of disabled people and other minority groups, relies on the concept of reasonable adjustments. Of course your idea of reasonable might not be the same as the person sitting next to you, so as disabled people we have had to work very hard to set a legal president which ensures our rights are protected. I felt as a disabled student I had few rights, and so this year I spoke in parliament to an all-party parliamentary group to advocate for more resources for disabled students in higher education. This is something we can all do. Maybe not all of us want to make speeches, but we all have talents that can be given to pushing for more robust policies.

I’ve spoken about some of the things I have struggled with as a blind person in the United Kingdom, but there are also things we are doing that I feel blind Americans would benefit from. In a number of hospitals across the United Kingdom there is a position known as an Eye Clinic Liaison officer. These individuals work in eye clinics, and they form a bridge between medical, and rehabilitation services. When someone finds out they are losing their vision this person is there to offer advice and share resources with them. This could be anything from money that is available to disabled people, to employment services or where they can begin to learn braille. Even as someone who was born blind I’ve benefited from this. Creating these bridges is vital in order for blind people to be given all the information they need to lead independent lives after they are diagnosed with some kind of vision loss. Many of these positions are filled by blind people, who offer encouragement to those who are losing their vision and have never met a blind person before. Perhaps this is a resolution for next years convention, though maybe I shouldn’t suggest that.

We are also able to access audio description much more readily than people in the United States. A considerable number of shows originating in the US don’t have audio description when shown over here, but do in the UK. We have achieved this by tirelessly insisting that access to entertainment matters. Access to audio description is controlled, with a quota mandating that at least 10% of programming must include audio description, and many channels exceed this quota. 10% is a great step in the right direction, but of course we should be able to access all shows on the TV when they are aired, and this is something that we are advocating for and working with Ofcom, the office for communications, on. Interestingly it’s been 25 years since the first audio described program on UK television, meaning I have never known a time in which it wasn’t available.

These two examples of successful advocacy efforts are different, but both demonstrate that as a community we are strong and we do have a voice.

Young blind people are also speaking up for their own rights. I can think of two blind students at the moment who are studying medicine at university. One of them attends Oxford university, one of the best universities in the country. The other student is deaf blind and she has worked tirelessly to change the narrative around blindness within the healthcare system, challenging those who doubt her capability. Last year, a young blind actor appeared on the popular tv show Dr who. She was playing a blind character, and she is represented by an agency that works with disabled actors and models. These people are changing what it means to be a blind person in the UK. For a country that doesn’t have training centers, vocational rehab or structured discovery, I think we’re taking positive strides towards equality. Imagine what we might do if we had all of these things.

I came to the United States because in England there are no training centers and there was no way for me to receive training. I’d had some o&m training, used a guide dog but was anxious about my future. What would I do if I had to move to a new area for a job? How would I find my way around? How was I going to manage being a real adult, outside the bubble that is university life? I knew that if I was to become the best version of myself I had to find a way to the United States, and I would like to extend my gratitude to the Colorado Center for the Blind, and particularly to Julie Deden, for giving me this opportunity to come to CCB.

In my time at ccb I have learned so many things and been shown so much kindness and encouragement. I love to travel, and now I can confidently travel using a white cane. 4 days after I started training I had to go to San Francisco for work, and so I found myself, after school, learning how to use the light rail in Denver with my cane travel instructor. A month into training I attended national convention. I spent the first night completely floored by anxiety, convinced I would never leave my hotel room. By the end of the week I confidently found my way through the casino to general session. A month afterwards I flew to Mexico to work at a conference. CCB changes lives and the federation changes lives. I am able to walk into the woodshop at CCB and now understand what some of the tools do, and how to use them. This is due to the endless patience shown by David who has never once seemed frustrated by my endless asking of “what does this do? And what happens if I press this button?”

I would like to take the things I am learning and share them with other blind people, in the United States but eventually back home. Because I believe that every blind person, no matter where they live or who they are, deserves the chance to gain the fundamental skills needed to take charge of their own lives.

Six months ago I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d told me I’d travel confidently through Denver, without instruction from a sighted person. I wouldn’t have thought I’d cook a meal for 15 people, let alone 60. I have already completed my meal for 15. I wouldn’t have thought I would be able to pick up even one tool in the wood shop and use it, let alone be planning my final project. I knew other blind people could do it, but could I?

I’ll get my bell. And I will get my bell because of the kindness and dedication shown by all of my instructors, and the other staff and students at the Colorado Center for the Blind. They have changed my life, and in doing so, the lives of all the people I may work with in future.

Your kindness means everything to me. We must continue to be generous to one another, giving when we can and building an even stronger federation and family. Treasure the structured discovery programs you have, whether those apiliated with the federation or otherwise. They are having a bigger impact than many of us can even imagine. And let’s continue to work together, whether we live in the same state or an ocean apart. Thank you.