Triple Vision

This month the Triple vision team has fun with one of our favorite podcasts, Happy Hour! In this episode we set aside some of the thornier issues about living with blindness in Canada, and tell stories about the lighter side! With guests Kaye Leslie, Sylvia Jonas, Vic Perera, and Triple Vision members Charlie Ayotte, Karoline Bourdeau and Peter Field we relax over a beverage of choice and talk about guide dogs, guide dog schools, travel, trains, and the good, if somewhat misguided, intentions of strangers. Somewhere in the midst of all of this Charlie even talks about what its like to be in the middle of a terrorist attack! So join us in this fun and relaxing trip around the lighter side of blindness. So cheers to happy hour, and have one on us!

In this second part of the Triple Vision team’s exploration of attitudes of the Christian church towards people who are blind, deafblind and partially sighted, Peter and Karoline talk to Danny Leung of the Joy Beyond Vision community. Danny is a pastor located north of Toronto. He connects Asian and non-Asian communities from Toronto to Vancouver. Offering a support network as well as programs and services, Joy Beyond Vision seeks to eliminate the stigma of what it means to be blind in the Asian community. "I just want to educate people, let people see another side of people with disabilities. And again, don’t look at my appearance, don’t look at my blindness, don’t look at me as somebody using a wheelchair. Just because they are using a wheelchair doesn’t mean that they are not capable. They are gifted in many ways."

In episode 51 the Triple vision talks transportation, specifically "floating" bus stops with guest host Richard Marion and First Vice President of the Alliance for Equality of Blind Canadians Linda Bartram. "Floating" bus stops or "island" bus stops are bus stops which pedestrians must access by crossing an often-uncontrolled bike lane. While part of "active" transportation measures, they also pose obvious dangers to all kinds of pedestrians, especially individuals who are blind, deafblind, or have low vision. In this episode Linda talks with Karoline and Richard about the efforts made by the blind community in Victoria to ensure the safety of blind pedestrians while travelling across bike lanes to reach island bus stops. Their advocacy efforts eventually led to a decision of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal, which, although it ruled in their favour, imposed a mitigation measure which was problematic, and has far-reaching implications. "the thing is we’re seeing a lot of multi-use pathways which we’re being expected to interact with, that is cyclists and other pathway users. Those are happening everywhere. This is an active transportation initiative for climate change, but while we’re not against active transportation initiatives, just don’t create a barrier when you’re doing it."

In this weeks episode, Carolyn and Peter talk with Kelly MacDonald of AMI. They asked the question; In a world of increasing integration for people who are blind, death blind, and partially sided, is there still a need for specialized broadcasters such as AMI? In this entertaining podcast Kelly answers this question, while providing humourous anecdotes along the way about his broadcasting career. We may not necessarily be meeting the local brodcaster, radio 98 or what ever they are. That is, not really mentioning disability at all in their news cast. When we talk politics there is never the "well for the seniors or disability this is what Justin Trudeau's platform is for that". We don't hear it, and it is because it is not the hot key. Does AMI do more of that? We are more likely to find, we are more likely to interview the people who at least will talk to us that way, and walk out saying "that should hold them for a while, good".

In episode 47 the Triple Vision team speaks with Sharlyn Ayotte, the Founder of T-Base Communications, now Allyant. We talk to her on the day of her retirement when she looks back on her long and pioneering career as an entrepreneur who pushed the boundaries on accessibility and universal design. As T-base the company was responsible for the Info touch system which delivered real time information to Canadians in multiple and alternative formats, as well as developed North America's first audio banking machine. I had learned some things during that whole process. I spent probably a good year on investigating how the Government of Canada made information available to citizens and constituents of the country on matters that were really important to us. Whether it was election information or it was health based or whatever it happened to be. Since we were depending so much on computer technology to help us through the process, and its all digital, why couldn't they just support digital for other formats such as digital audio, digital braille, digital large print and all of those things.

In this month's podcast Peter Field of the Triple Vision team takes listeners on a tour of his hobby farm in Ashcroft British Columbia. Peter became fascinated about how blind individuals could take up farming following an interview on podcast 22 with Professor Geoffrey Reaume of York University. In that podcast Professor Reaume explained how, prior to the industrial revolution, blind individuals fully participated in the economy by working on farms. Consequently, he and his partner purchased a 20-acre hobby farm in the interior of BC where they manage chickens, sheep, 7 dogs and an intrepid barn cat. Tune in to this month's episode of Triple Vision for this fascinating story about managing life on a farm without vision.

Uncovering Book Clubs: Why Book Clubs are More Accessible to Individuals who are Blind than Ever Before In this month's podcast Karoline and Peter uncover the world of book clubs for individuals who are blind, deafblind, and partially sighted. It used to be that it was very difficult for individuals with visual impairments to join book clubs, but now, with the proliferation of books available in so many formats, attending book club meetings is no longer such a big deal. In this podcast Karoline asks Chris Jonas and Pasquale Agnone of her chat-based book club to talk about why they find book clubs so interesting, and the pros and cons of joining book clubs organized specifically for people who are blind vs. mixed book clubs. "In terms of your question about why blind people would go to a blind book club, I think its just because there's that shared experience. They have a common format like, typically most blind people prefer the audio format. They know what the sources are. They can compare what is available. They can talk about the narration which is not something which is usually talked about in a "non-blind" book club. There's things like that. Things that everyone is familiar with as a person with a visual impairment when it comes to reading books."