Mark Enston, a teacher and writer from Craige, lost his sight due to diabetes when he was in his 20s. He is one of hundreds of Australians who are blind or have low vision that are able to be independent through using a Seeing Eye Dog.
Seeing Eye Dogs Australia (SEDA), a division of Vision Australia, matches people like Mark with specially trained dogs. And, with more and more Australians losing their sight each year, the need for qualified Seeing Eye Dogs is growing rapidly.
Voodoo is the first Seeing Eye Dog Mark has received from SEDA. Previously he has trained his own dogs and had them officially accredited by SEDA trainers. "It's the first time I have had a Labrador. I needed a dog straight away and just asked SEDA if they could provide one because I was too busy with work to train another one myself. So in a matter of weeks they got back to me with a perfect dog."
Work for Mark has several different aspects including teaching at Curtain University. "I teach the online course for a Bachelor of Education. It's excellent not having to go in face to face because it's a long way to travel. I can work in my pyjamas if I want to."
He also runs his own professional writing business. "It was hard to start a business just on the writing but the teaching helped me get established and now I do writing and editing jobs as well as tutoring. I also have International students who rent rooms in my house and I edit a lot of their work because their English is not always that good."
Vision Australia assists in other ways to make Mark's work and life easier. "I get the reading lists for my students on talking book and with adaptive technology like the computer speech program Jaws most jobs are doable though some things take a bit longer. I also have talking scales and thing for the top of the coffee cup that beeps when it's full and a few other things that are quite useful."