In honor of Blindness Awareness Month, I’ll be doing some special things around here on Adventures in Low Vision as October progresses. Also, there’s already fantastic information about vision loss and those living with visual impairments at your fingertips on my Low Vision Blogroll, located on the blog’s right sidebar. In the meantime, I wanted to kick off this month’s celebration to raise awareness with some great facts from the NFB, which is headquartered in Baltimore, MD. The organization believes:
“…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. “
Let’s share some things from the NFB’s Blindness Statistics page:
- The statutory definition of “legally blind” is that central visual acuity must be 20/200 or less in the better eye with the best possible correction or that the visual field must be 20 degrees or less.
- In 2014, the total number of legally blind children enrolled in school in the U.S. was 60,393 students.
- In 2013, the number of persons aged 16 and up who reported to have a visual disability was 7,327,800.
- In 2013, the state with the greatest number of people who reported having a visual impairment was California.
- In 2013, for people who reported having a visual impairment, 24% did not graduate from high school.
- in 2013, for adults of working age who reported having a visual impairment, 40.2% were employed.
- In 2015, Guiding Eyes for the Blind estimates that, “only about 2 percent of all people who are blind and visually impaired work with guide dogs.”
For more fascinating facts about blindness, follow this link to the NFB site. If you have other resources about blindness, feel free to share them in the comments section to celebrate Blindness Awareness Month.
Adventures in Low Vision 
OMGosh I totally forgot about it being Blindness Awareness Month even though I’ve received emails on it back in September. I also forgot about it being Disability Awareness Month as well. I’m going to have to get cracking but for now I’ll relax and enjoy your posts throughout the month.
Blindness Awareness definitely lags behind Breast Cancer Awareness in platform. Maybe we should incorporate a color to boost our campaign. No! We should make polka dots our campaign ribbon thing. They can symbolize tunnel vision, blind spots, and macular holes. How about it? Grin.
Haha, I actually like the idea of black and white polka dots. You could be on to something because we seriously need an awareness device. I think if we had a non-profit dedicated to raising awareness on blindness we just might be able to get a handle on some of the negativity associated with vision loss. A friend of mine in Canada has an awareness effort for low vision but I think if it were more general to encompass the range of vision loss from low vision to blindness we could make an impact.
oh and different sized dots could portray degrees of vision. The contrast would be good too with black/white. Gives me something to think about for 2016…
All we need to do is start a movement. Different sized dots and maybe even make them fuzzy around the edges.
YES! Maybe some of them could be raised, too, like pieces of felt. Tactile ribbons for Blindness Awareness! I have a lot to dream about now, ha.
That’s an excellent idea Susan!! We just may have started the movement right here in this little chat session.
We need a glue gun, stat, lol.
Hahaha
Susan – these are great stats you chose to share from NFB. I”m getting ready for an interview about blindness awareness month on a local radio show this week, and I think I will share some of these stats. I also loved your interview from On the Blink, but couldn’t find the comment field to write a comment there. Your answers made me want to hang out with you, sipping mulled spices spiked with bourbon. yes please!
Oh wow, radio appearances! Will the station post the interview in its archives? I hope you have fun and then blog about it, grin.
And thanks for reading the On the Blink interview. Too bad you don’t live near Mayberry, otherwise we would have to start doing Fiery Fridays get-togethers . BYOBourbon!