Jay Vallis
A & E Reporter

Next week recognizes visually impaired Canadians, but the college works year round to help students with such disabilities.

Humber and Guelph-Humber has 16 visually impaired students who use the disability centre, said Maureen Carnegie, co-ordinator and consultant of the centre.

The centre allows students to use software like Zoomtext and Readback, software which increases text size, reads texts and allows students to make adjustments.

The school also puts students in contact with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, to help ease them with their new surroundings.

“Students can come to the college, have someone travel with them and walk them through the school,” said Carnegie.

She said the school is not formally involved with White Cane Week, but doesn’t rule it out for the future.

White Cane Week, the first week in February, is an educational initiative that focuses attention on visually impaired awareness. It began in 1946.

Voiceprint is Canada’s broadcast reading service for blind or vision impaired people.

Arlene Patterson, director of operations at Voiceprint said, “It’s a time to celebrate the symbol of the white cane as a symbol of independence, and recognize the accomplishments of persons with no or low vision.”

Mike Baillargeon, of the Canadian Council of the Blind, says that many people don’t understand what it means to be blind.

“Close your eyes. Have you got them closed? It’s like that, forever,” he said
There are 600,000 vision impaired people in Canada, and 15 per cent are legally blind.

According to the American Medical Association, anyone with vision worse than 20/200 that cannot be improved with corrective lenses is considered legally blind.

From Feb. 3-9 the Canadian Council of the Blind and Voiceprint will be hold events across Canada to raise awareness.

This year’s events include featured programming on Voiceprint, a described film, blind bowling, a national blind curling event in Ottawa and the Feb. 8 episode of the Rick Mercer Report, which will be described for the vision impaired.

The described film will be at the Palmerstone Library Theatre in Toronto next Thursday at 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

“During White Cane Week, the Canadian Council of the Blind will also be working on a child registry program to detect and prevent blindness in children,” Baillargeon said, “or at the very least prepare the child and family for the emotional and physical adjustments.”