You may have seen Steve Obeid on Channel 9’s Millionaire Hot Seat win a cool $50,000 last night. It was a wonderful display proving that blindness or low vision shouldn’t deter you from reaching for your dreams. However, there is much more to Steve than what you saw last night.
Diagnosed with Stargardts at the tender age of 12, Steve has never been one to let his vision loss deter him from his goals. In fact, he’s appreciative that if his vision did have to deteriorate, it’s doing so at its current pace.
“I’ve been very fortunate that my vision is deteriorating at a slow, steady rate” Steve says. I’ve met people with the same condition and their vision has deteriorated significantly faster than mine is. Seeing where my vision could go in the future makes me feel blessed for the opportunities I have now.”
Steve has taken these opportunities with both hands and held on tight. Not only was he on the first low vision team to represent Australia in Futsal in 2018, he currently plays blind cricket with the Victorian team, as well as in Victorian Blind Football League for the Bulldogs.
“I’m so close to making the first team in blind cricket, I just need to keep practicing and, fingers crossed, when it comes to the next selection I get picked.”
Steve has always wanted to go on Millionaire Hot Seat for as long as he can remember. He applied when he first hit 18 years of age but didn’t get on. When the show revamped into its Hot Seat variant, he applied again.
“After sending out the application for Hot Seat I got a call inviting me to take part in the next stage of the process. I thought to myself ‘Oh, this could really be happening!’ I told everyone I knew and then got a further phone call confirming I was on the show.”
When it came time to actually go on the show, Steve was incredibly impressed with the way that the Millionaire Hot Seat staff catered to his needs.
“Everyone was amazing and so accommodating to my needs” said Steve. “During rehearsal they made sure I could do everything I needed to. They showed me where to stand, pointed out steps on the way, they even changed the font size on the screens so I could read it easier. The whole process was seamless.”
Steve is also currently undertaking studies in a Bachelors of Physical Education, just in case he wasn’t busy enough already! He started this journey in 2015 with assistance from the Vision Australia Further Education Bursary, and is looking forward to completing this journey next year.