Opinion pieces

Kaye Speed, 68, loved her career in accountancy but losing her sight 21 years ago meant made it difficult for her to continue.

Valma, 83, has regular injections in her eye to stabilise the degeneration of her vision. She’s thankful for the treatment but is now unable to read books with her current level of sight.

Thanks to her persistence when attending Vision Australia’s iPad classes, 78-year old vision Evelyn Reynolds can now use an iPad with ease.

Ferntree Gully resident David Pocock, who is blind, was housebound and unable to walk down the street when he first lost his sight. Now, two years later, with the help of Vision Australia, he has learned to use a handheld talking GPS device.

Like many of us, 65-year-old William Koh doesn’t leave home without his iPhone. He also doesn’t leave home without his talking GPS and talking barcode reader.

Up until five years ago, Mark Res was working as a labourer until decreasing vision meant he could no longer continue.

On Thursday September 18, a team from Vision Australia visited Parliament House Melbourne. To raise awareness of living with blindness and low vision amongst Victorian State Parliamentarians, we set up a number of displays and invited MPs to drop-by and learn about Vision Australia’s services to the blind and low vision community.

Vision Australia has advocated in support of audio description on Australian television on behalf of our community for many years. In late August, Minister Turnbull wrote to Vision Australia advising us that there will be a trial Audio Description service introduced on the ABC’s iView service starting from April 2015.

In this program, following the recent Apple announcements, we explore the benefits of these developments for people who are blind or have low vision. Also the Premier of Victoria is part of the program.

Janine Plummer, who runs a garden maintenance company with her husband Ian, has Retinitis Pigmentosa an hereditary condition that causes a degeneration of the light sensitive cells and pigment layer of the retina. Janine has no vision in her left eye and only tunnel vision with no colour perception in her right.