Outlook on Radio Western

Hanna Leavitt is an author and blindness historian whose life passion is in creating a world with words and she is our guest this week on Outlook.

We met Hanna through the podcast she co-hosts called Triple Vision, all about the past, present, and future of blindness in Canada.

We have a lively chat about the brain tumour that was the cause of the damage to her eyes, the importance of finding out about our own blindness history here in this country and the community and culture of blindness (depending on the decade we’re talking and how blindness was viewed over the years), and end off with a bit of spring gardening talk.

The Disability Experience: Working Towards Belonging, with illustrations by Belle Wuthrich and put out through Orca Publishing in British Columbia, is her book, released in April of last year. It makes an important resource for young people and should be in libraries and schools to share the disability experience with everyone so they grow up with understanding and compassion for just another way of being in the world, one that could affect any one of us at any time. Leavitt aims to reach people to possibly change the prevailing outlook on blindness that still exists out there, addressing questions many are too afraid to ask.

You can find her book everywhere books are sold and online here:

https://www.orcabook.com/The-Disability-Experience

Check her out on her website:

https://hannaloraleavitt.com

And you can find Triple Vision here:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/triple-vision/id1589475286

Last fall, Kerry participated (as community consultant of lived experience) in a virtual Inclusive Design Multisensory Museum course through Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD U). The instructor of that course was Melissa Smith, who works at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) as Assistant Curator, Access and Learning.

This week on Outlook we speak with Melissa and two students who took the course about what was covered throughout and about the multisensory translation projects the students were tasked with creating from artworks available at the AGO, all while figuring out how to adapt their work during Covid times.

We discuss art as a human right and how inclusivity is different in museums and galleries in different parts of the world, some of the challenges and opportunities of translating the artworks virtually, and Melissa shares some of the guest speakers she invited to present which offer as many diverse perspectives as possible.

We hear from students Parth Shah and Kyrie Robinson about their chosen art piece, a 60s sculpture by Claes Oldenburg titled Ice Cream Soda and Cookie and about all they gained by working, utilizing a multisensory approach to translating this sculpture, along with co-design and collective collaboration throughout.

A sculpture so good, you could almost eat it. What memories does ice cream and a cookie bring up for each of us?

As our show originally airs on Radio Western, we also mention how Melissa got her Masters in Art History from University of Western Ontario and we also give another shoutout of a tribute to recently deceased Outlook guest and longtime advocate John Rae whom Smith knew for several years after he’d reached out to her about accessibility at the AGO.

For more on Parth and Kyrie’s translation:

https://ago.ca/events/multisensory-moments-claes-oldenburgs-ice-cream-soda-cookie

And for a wider look at the AGO’s multisensory offerings, check out their website here:

https://ago.ca/learn/multisensory-museum

Finally, check out interviews with Melissa Smith and John Rae on an episode of Toronto’s Balance For Blind Adults podcast Living Blind:

https://www.balancefba.org/podcast/season-2-living-blind-podcast/

Banter: the playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks. (quips, ribbing, witticisms)

A banter based conversation is happening this week (with more than just the two of us) and we like that - the wittier the better.

This week on Outlook, we speak with Rob Mineault, Ryan Fleury, Steve Barclay and Lis Malone who host the podcast AT Banter, some of whom are blind and visually impaired and others not.

We discuss old timey blind tech from the nineties, how smartphones and other modern technologies have revolutionized things for blind users, and the world of podcasting as it’s evolved, including Lis’s own podcasts from the past few years: Breaking Dishes and Access Point.

Disability advocacy as passion project and/or mission, diversity and intersectionality, and the way all for hosts of the AT Banter crew share in the division of labour for their show.

We hear the inside stories with these four, (Lis the newest to join the bunch), about which of them is nicknamed “Pinball” and why and about the origins of “the Guitar Dungeon”. While they start off with experience and knowledge in the assistive tech arena, this podcast is overall about the witty banter going on between friends and colleagues, discussing serious topics with guests and each other while also having fun.

Check out AT Banter here:

https://atbanter.com

And for more on the assistive tech side of things:

https://canasstech.com

During National Volunteer appreciation Week, held every year at this time in April, we’re pleased to feature one of the kindest, friendliest people we know who’s volunteered for years.

We first met this guest at a Canadian Federation of the Blind convention out in B.C. and we greatly appreciate her support of this show. This week on Outlook, we speak with Nancy Gill, a mother and now newly a grandmother who’s had to learn to manage and adapt to Usher’s Syndrome throughout her life. Usher’s is a condition causing both blindness and deafness.

She tells us about the supports she didn’t receive when she was in school as a child, learning braille in her sixties, and the complicated parent/child relationship. We hear about her love of cooking, gardening, and her new OrCam reader which she can use to do both those things more accessibly.

Disability has, historically, and still does bring with it challenges (barriers society puts in the way), feelings of denial, and feelings of shame. We, as blind people, need to openly discuss it to eliminate it, how we can all feel useful. Gill goes through life with a sense of humour and outgoing outlook.

We discuss the outlooks we have and choose to share and how we learn from others and Nancy’s outlook is one of giving back and getting out there. She is doing this with a new senior’s support group. Check out the following link to learn more about her Blind/DeafBlind Seniors National Roundtables . They have a new intake open right now and are highly recommended for any blind seniors out there who would like to join:

https://cobd.ca/programs/roundtables/#seniors

And for more on Nancy’s story, check out Kerry’s article featuring her in The Blind Canadian magazine:

https://www.cfb.ca/the-blind-canadian-volume-20-december-2021?id=11

We spoke to this guest on a Sunday night/Monday morning, all the way from Australia.

This week on Outlook we hear from author, mentor, public speaker Maribel Steel about motherhood while losing her sight, about her book Blindness For Beginners, and she even gave us a demonstration of a handy little gadget called the PenFriend.

With her guide dog by her side, Steel is always open to the possibilities, acceptance of disability and those same endless possibilities we all want for our lives.

For more info and to purchase her book, check out Steel's official website:

https://maribelsteel.com/

We’re back for our first Monday Mixed Bag show, live in studio, since early February.

This week on Outlook, we make sure to mix in the silly stuff, the light stuff, in with some of the more serious, the sad things like the death of a recent guest, John Rae. Just goes to show, don’t put off something to next week that you could do today.

We share a braille alphabet song to kick things off and discuss the upcoming We’re With U benefit concert for blind Ukrainians being put on by the blindness community. And from Brian’s live musical performances to fantasy baseball, and rounding things off with a little old cellphone grab story, there’s no shortage of things to talk about.

We dedicate this episode to John Rae, a tireless advocate who made a difference with the work he did for blindness in Canada and beyond. RIP

For more info and links to stream We're With U, the blind performing artists' Virtual Benefit Concert for blind Ukrainians happening April 16 at 2 PM EST:

https://mushroomfm.com/withyou

Listen to John's recent appearance on Outlook:

https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outlook-2022-03-07-think-global-act-local-with-john-rae/id1527876739?i=1000553477466

And check out The Braille Alphabet Song by Jack Hartmann:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT_dD7tEIEg

Alexa was out window shopping during her final year of studying fashion in Toronto when she spotted a beaded jacket and had an “Aha moment.”

Alexa Jovanovic loved fashion as a little girl, but it wasn’t until she studied it in school that she learned about a topic not yet trending on social media, not yet a common thing to see diversity boards and plans factored in everywhere, but she thought braille could both look aesthetically appealing and be functional as well. Her final project became the research and launching of Aille Design, now expanding across North America.

Today on Outlook, we speak with its founder about the reactions she got from people when she first explained what she was doing (the persistent misconception that blind people don’t care what they’re wearing or what they look like), the research and development that went into her braille beaded clothing with consultations from the blindness community itself, and the wider issue of disability consumerism and representation in the fashion industry.

Aille Design, pronounced like “eye” or “I” as in the personal, even has the braille character “i” represented by dots 2 and 4 of the braille alphabet.

Check them out and order some clothes on their website:

https://ailledesign.com

And find Aille Design on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/ailledesign/

When our guest this week was a child, she’d follow a string her parents had strung up for her, tied to poles on the road between her home and that of her grandmother. She was encouraged to walk the route, but it wasn’t until later that she saw the value in the mobility cane in lieu of one.

This week on Outlook we speak with star athlete Janet Erikson who competed in the Geilo 1980 Paralympic Winter Games.

Skiing and cross country in her mainstream high school, but Janet had grown up in rural Manitoba until the CNIB visited to offer guidance and the family moved out west so she could attend Jericho Hill School for the Deaf and Blind which closed over 25 years ago.

This week we talk of her somewhat sheltered childhood as the baby of the family, about the shock of attending a residential school for blind and deaf children away from her loved ones and community, and we hear how she has taken back her own life and shown that blindness can be empowering rather than demoralizing.

We can all do with a large dose of Erikson’s optimism today. With the years of experience she’s had. We, here on Outlook, are grateful to guests like her, for the sharing of her story with us.

Co-host Kerry was a sensitivity/authenticity reader/consultant on a recent project, a picture book published by Toronto’s children’s book publishers’ Kids Can Press.

“My City Speaks” is a book for young readers, a delightful exploration of a cityscape, through the perspective of a little blind girl. In it, she travels her city, experiencing the sounds and smells along the way.

This week, on Outlook, we’re speaking with the author of the book, Darren Lebeuf and its illustrator, Ashley Barron. They tell us about their author/illustrator roles on this project (and the other two books in the series) and the discussion evolves into one about how blindness and disability have been included (or not included historically) in literature and children’s literature more specifically.

Pick up a copy of “My City Speaks” in either hard cover, ebook, and in print/braille versions, along with the other two books in the series (“My Forest is Green and ”My Ocean is Blue), all available on the Kids Can Press website here:

https://kidscanpress.com//

Check out Ashley on her website:

http://www.ashleybarron.com

and on Instagram @_ashleybarron_

And find Darren on his website:

http://landoflebeef.com

and on Instagram @darrenlebeuf

According to John Rae, it was 1975 when he jumped, feet first, into the world of legislative advocacy, community organizing, and activism in the blindness community, first with something called Blind Organizing Ontario with Self-Help Tactics (BOOST) which evolved into the Alliance for the Equality of Blind Canadians (AEBC).

Rae has lived all his life as a Torontonian, fighting human rights cases, and working as a civil servant, taking early retirement where he’s been able to focus on lending his knowledge, expertise, and lived experience as a blind man to various causes.

Today on Outlook, we talk to John about the importance for blind people to travel and experience the smells and sounds of other places, his educational journey from Toronto to Windsor, and how vital it is to have mentors who can show us the possibilities available to us as blind people as there were multiple career options Rae didn’t feel were accessible to him years ago.

He shares his thoughts on the variety of educational settings he went through, such as his time in both integrated settings and what were known as sight saving classes and at what was then known as the Ontario School for the Blind in Brantford in the 60’s.

We discuss the disconnect between the medical profession and its blind patients, the hesitancy to deal with politicians and how being seen in settings of all kinds is how we’ll finally be taken into account, and John’s issues with the dangers of eBikes.

There’s elections coming up in Ontario in 2022 and our issues need to be addressed, but how do we keep up the energy for advocacy? We look to the years of life experience John Rae has accumulated, the importance of finding balance and planning for the bigger picture.

The recent trucker convoys, taking over streets, this has had a clogging up impact on people with disabilities and with blindness specifically. As the pandemic begins to ease, all around us, John Rae is thinking about how we can “build back better” for everyone going forward here in Ontario, and in Canada and beyond.

Send John an email,

And check out an article from 1979 to get a glimpse into some of the history discussed in this episode:

https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1979/1/15/the-blind-speaking-for-the-blind