Outlook on Radio Western

Over the summer, we visited Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown, outside of Boston.

It’s September and back-to-school is on people’s minds so we bring you a special Outlook…into this historic educational environment for blind and deafblind children.

What brought us all there together?” Our tour guide asks us.

Well, sister/co-host Kerry has known about Perkins for most of her life, which is down to her history with Helen Keller (this episode including a bit of the backstory on the history of Perkins). She wanted to see the place and finally, found herself in the Boston area in July. So she talked her brother/boyfriend/new friend to join her and an adventure they’d never forget.

They all had fun in the end, from the playground to the museum, we even came across a giant globe.

Of course, the whole museum was so much more accessible and inclusive than most other museums, and the Brailler museum station is the highlight, the machine we used growing up named from the school. Or the tactile map station of the entire campus. It was a specialised learning experience and some of us could have been there all day. You certainly needed it to see and read it all.

We wanted to share the highlights of our tour of Perkins School for the Blind - to let listeners know what this place is, what it’s stood for all these years, and what it now means to all of us who were there that day. So come along as we take you back to Perkins with us.

Bonus material (Not on original radio broadcast): our farewell to Boston with our friend, State Trooper Steve.

Learn more about Perkins online:

https://www.perkins.org

Richard Marion knows that: with the political climate threatening inclusivity of society in some ways, it’s even more important, out there, that he only wants people identifying themselves, being proud of their identities.

Going with our September theme, we’re beginning this one by talking education for the blind, for our guest. This week on Outlook we’re speaking with first-time guest on the show, Richard Marion, from Richmond, British Columbia, but he wasn’t always living in Metro Vancouver.

We hear from Richard about the culture shock of going from the third grade at the school for the blind to a much bigger classroom environment in his local, mainstream school for grade four. He shares about bullying, the white cane and braille skills he was given, while trying to make use of his residual sight.

Richard shares about his intersectionalities which include disability, coming out as a part of the 2SLGBTQQAI+ community, and discovering his Metis heritage.

We talk audio description not transferring across the border. Marion was the one who got the Vancouver Pride Society to have live audio description for the Pride Parade and then would pass the baton to VocalEye.

He applied for Metis Citizenship, in 2019 receiving his Metis Nation British Columbia status card, after childhood summers going back to the Manitoba he was born into. Since he’s gone on to be hired to audit the accessibility of the Assembly of First Nations national general meetings.

Finally he talks about his touring with a group of musicians and his recent bucket list train travel from Vancouver to Toronto, sharing about the friendliness of the Via Rail staff along the way.

Every year, when our anniversary for starting rolls around, we like to invite guests on with us who listen to the show. This time, we’ve invited longtime listener and friend Nancy Gill to join us live on air.

It’s our Six Mix this week on Outlook with Nancy, all phone troubles aside, and we couldn’t have found a better person to be with us for this one.

Nancy has a routine, every Monday morning (as it starts at 8 AM on the west coast where she’s located) Gill gets up, gets coffee, and crawls back into bed in her pyjamas to tune in.

So for this one we look back on the last six years, with massive amounts of help from Nancy, as she remembers so many of the guests and topics we’ve hosted and covered and she gives examples better than we ever could.

We’re so glad, it’s why we do this show, that listeners like Nancy find what we bring to the program helpful and that Outlook can be a place people can feel at home.

So it’s a special Mixed Bag episode, with Nancy Gill, to celebrate six years doing this radio show/podcast, for ourselves and for anyone out there with a perspective (an Outlook) to share.

And this isn’t our first time speaking with Nancy on Outlook. Check out her previous appearance here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2022-04-25-national-volunteer-week-with-first/id1527876739?i=1000558793185

Trouble with technology, social media, and yet we come on air laughing, asking ourselves one question:

Next step - should we get a billboard?

This week on Outlook it’s another Mixed Bag and one of the final summer shows.

We hear about Brian’s night out and Kerry’s, Blind Barbie, and the 2024 Paris Paralympics are here with braille on the medals, being that France was the home country of its inventor.

So with the end of summer on the horizon, here’s to looking ahead and good luck to all athletes competing.

Learn more about the blind Barbie:

https://shop.mattel.com/en-ca/products/barbie-fashionistas-doll-in-partnership-with-the-american-foundation-for-the-blind-hrh17

August is half gone and “back To school” will soon be here. Our returning guest this week, Mitch Kidd, knows about the butterflies on the first day (both as student and as educational worker) speaking with us about the new teaching program they’re starting this fall.

This time we two are back in studio and speaking with Mitch all the way from their home on Canada’s west coast once again. This episode discusses taking breaks between guide dogs, “now celebrating a year with Mitch’s third guide dog Mario”, on always traveling with a white cane in their backpack (as a backup) to be able to explore their surroundings tactually, and on the cross-animal relationships and interaction as Mario met Mitch’s miniature horses and on hiring an animal translator for guidance.

We’re glad to have them back to hear an update on things such as self employment services and training, on musicianship and accessing braille music, and their feelings on traveling on Vancouver’s Sky Train now and on asking for assistance through the station.

We talk a recent ADHD diagnosis, being able to access time out in nature when you have a disability and on speaking up about hiking with others not being wrong (with some of the judgments within the disability community), and the relief of travel to Victoria being made easier by the knowledge of what having ADHD means for them. For Mitch (over stimulation as their brain would go off-line), knowledge is certainly power/empowering.

So going from South Africa to Vancouver Island, we’re reflecting with return guest Mitch on the passage of time and on living our truths. It’s an honest discussion on intersecting identities as we work to make this show a place where such open conversations are made more commonplace. We at Outlook congratulate Mitch on their recent official name change.

And, when it comes to identity and gender and politics, Mitch says: “It’s my life you’re talking about.” They tell us, “It’s been a mixed bag really,” as Mitch shares about misgendering, making taking hormones accessible, and on those who just won’t try vs people who do.

Live and let live we say, the mixed bag of intersectionality being what Outlook’s all about, with returning friend of the show, Mitch, and first-time guest Mario too.

Find Mitch's previous appearance on the show here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2022-11-14-blindness-and-gender-intersecting/id1527876739?i=1000586296318

It’s still summer and the summer months often include summer camp which is where our guests this week first met as teens.

To begin with, the three things we have in common are our differing levels on the blindness spectrum, all four of us were integrated into the public school system, and we now record our respective podcasts in studios, them at the studio at Perkins School for the Blind and us at Radio Western.

On this episode of Outlook we’re speaking with Lina Coral and Juna Gjata from the 2024 debut - “Blind Girl Chat” podcast about their first impressions of one another when meeting at Perkins summer programs, the conditions and syndromes which led to their blindness and to them coming to the States as children, and some of the best and worst things about being blind, even in a progressive state like Massachusetts, all of which they have open and honest chats about.

We chat about the lack of truly funny blind jokes, having a sense of humour about our daily disability moments, and deciding when or if to take advantage of the perks of being blind, of which there are plenty.

Diversity, identity, intersectionality - just like Outlook’s accessibility, advocacy, and equality are the themes of our show and of theirs as we have a chat with the girls from “Blind Girl Chat” on all this and much more.

Find them wherever you get your podcasts or at the following link:

https://blindgirlchat.podbean.com

Picture it, Maine and Boston, 2024 …

A loon on a serene lake and six blind people are hearing its call from a boat in the middle of said lake, as the sound reverberates the way only sound can on open water.

Fans cheer for their favourite baseball team and the sounds of their excitement echoes within one of the Major League’s most famous ball parks.

Co-host Kerry wins the award for the best sound leaping into the water.

And a night full of crickets are in the audio foreground as a loon once again calls out, but from the lake out there in the background.

This Outlook is Barry’s last one live for a while, but he and guide dog Oyster will be back with us.

But first, on Outlook this week, we’re talking Maine and Boston, which is where we all were, for a week in July, and we’re sharing a bit about our time away.

We discuss the Drama Club Camp week together in an old inn in Maine, just what we did all week, and some about those whom we were there with.

We also discuss duck tours, fresh sea food, and visiting Perkins during our 48 hours in Boston as we share (using some soundscape clips to break up the talking over one another because it was just such a meaningful experience for all of us).

From the hugging area (a no sorry zone) to access checks, many so-called “coincidences” happened to us all while away. (Stay tuned for a deeper dive, like the one you could make off the side of a boat, into the creative and collaborative work we did in Maine.)

This episode is dedicated to Toad and his recovery. So glad he’s doing well. So pleased for Scott, Shannon (our hosts for the week),, and Toad’s brother Frog.

Check out more about Brian’s band Fowler and the song “Frog and Toad Aren’t Friends” which was one of his “coincidences”. We each had them:

https://fowlercanada.bandcamp.com/track/frog-and-toad-arent-friends

And learn more about Scott Ihrig on his official website:

https://www.ihrig.com

Right before our end-of-the-month group trip to Maine and Boston we wanted to meet and speak with Nefertiti Matos Olivares, who describes herself as using her “voice” in the creation and narration of culturally competent audio description as a first-generation brown-skinned American woman, for another Disability Pride month chat on the podcast.

This week on Outlook we’re talking with Nefertiti (audio describer and member of The Social Audio Description Collective), whom we meet virtually for this recording and then in person soon after, about her work with Descriptive Video Works (Canadian company and North American leader in audio description) and about her independent work in the field..

Nefertiti tells us about low expectations within the crisscross of her specific intersectionalities, medical trauma and career change (scars and The Oscars), and having someone impartial in her life for some of these things along the way.

Reality being just that life happens (particularly when talking disability and chronic illness), we discuss the need for and value in going to therapy, possessing true empathy, and the things which are considered to be universal truths. We talk waiting lists and second times around with transplant as we discuss our similarities and differences in chronic illness conditions and experiences including something known as “sleepy kidney”, as we hear about Nef’s own transplant story,

This episode, recorded on July 15th, happens to be Brian’s transplant anniversary so we figure this could be a place of connection with this particular guest from which to begin the conversation, as Outlook isn’t all about blindness but about the intersections between disability, chronic illness, and everything else.

We four talk resilience like during episodes living with disability and chronic illness (whether it’s long Covid or kidney disease or blindness) and Surviving vs thriving (both emotionally and physically).

As we leave another Disability Pride July behind us - check out more about Nefertiti’s group, The Social Audio Description Collective for a more equity based group of audio description professionals:

https://socialaudiodescription.com/

And learn more about Descriptive Video Works:

https://descriptivevideoworks.com

What is the Canadian Disability Hall of Fame? We talk questions like this and more in the first show of an important month for the disability community which we’ve marked for a few years now on air.

Happy Disability Pride Month everyone!

We celebrated Canada last week by replaying an episode with a fellow Canadian: Anne Mok’s Purpose In View, but we’re back, live, on Outlook this week with the three of us and Oyster the guide dog.

And we’ll be taking Outlook on the road this month, doing lived experience work, with a group of blind friends to celebrate disability pride together.

We’re talking PRIDE today - on this week’s Mixed Bag show we discuss the upcoming trip to Portland, Maine and Boston and what we’re doing at an inn in Maine for a week with other blind creatives, the three tourist experiences we have planned to meet each one of our interests, and we discuss why “pride? In the first place.

Also, The National Federation of the Blind is one of a few organized blindness movements having their annual convention at the beginning of Disability Pride Month so we go over some of their 2024 resolutions to see what they’re up to and these matters in the resolutions, we choose to discuss a few which we have something to say about, including their motion that Perkins School for the Blind should change their name because Perkins was involved in the illegal opium trade and in enslaved people.

Between the two halves of our live show this week, our commercial for Outlook was chosen to air by the computer system at the station and it ends with the sound of a Perkins Brailler. It’s always been Perkins to us, we’re going on a tour of that historic school for blind children later this month, but we acknowledge the collective trauma caused by the honouring of men like Perkins and his hand in perpetrating lasting damage. We’re exploring all the issues which matter to blind people where and how and when we can.

So happy Disability Pride from us at Outlook On Radio Western. And why call it pride when Pride Month is June for LGBTQ2S+ just the month before?

There are blind people in both minorities so we’re honoured to follow, (the very next month) their path toward greater representation and inclusion.

Check out our past episode featuring 2024 Canadian Disability Hall of Fame inductee Penny Bennett here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2021-06-28-deafblind-awareness-month-with/id1527876739?i=1000527431020

“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” - Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks) said it and he was right, most especially with our Mixed Bag Monday shows at times.

Check out Outlook this week as we review Forrest Gump on its portrayal of disability on screen, since the 90’s when it was released. We also discuss rainbows (June being 2S LGBTQ Pride), along with more examples of audio description and using AI for image descriptions.

So while life can be a lot like a box of mixed chocolates, this episode, the above is our way of giving those chocolates names as we strive for further inclusion and pride for all people, as LGBTQ Pride turns into July’s Disability Pride.