Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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A Village of my own Blind People (self.Blind)
submitted by Littlebiggran
Just thinking.
I sometimes get tired of being the disability no one wants to deal with because of responsibility if you decide to help us and that people are inconsiderate of as they pass us, rearrange our stuff/organization.
I read there is a village in Western Europe for dementia and Alzheimers clients. It seems to have a lot of plusses.
Why can't we have a village just for us. Each in a home arranged by us, for us. Signs at touch level. Stores that speak aisle by aisle. Not visual art and stimulation. Lots of places to meet others like us instead of waiting months for a vision specialist or tech person (I've called various region based organizations every two weeks for six months and the excuse is short staff -- FFS pay them).
What else would we need?
I sometimes get tired of being the disability no one wants to deal with because of responsibility if you decide to help us and that people are inconsiderate of as they pass us, rearrange our stuff/organization.
I read there is a village in Western Europe for dementia and Alzheimers clients. It seems to have a lot of plusses.
Why can't we have a village just for us. Each in a home arranged by us, for us. Signs at touch level. Stores that speak aisle by aisle. Not visual art and stimulation. Lots of places to meet others like us instead of waiting months for a vision specialist or tech person (I've called various region based organizations every two weeks for six months and the excuse is short staff -- FFS pay them).
What else would we need?
Sewn27 6 points 1y ago
I’m new to being blind, last six months. Perhaps some of my suggestions will already be out there. I live in the US and have not passed all the hurdles I needed to secure aid. I would like to see clothing more accessible. I find myself reverting to the same things/clothes over and over again because I can easily find them. Also medication‘s are a huge hazard, over-the-counter meds or things needed without prescriptions. All those bubble packs are a real pain in the butt!
Sewn27 5 points 1y ago
One thing I have noticed is that being blind is expensive!! I know there is an additional tax credit that’s useless for those who do not have employment. I’m in my sixties and who does all this labeling? I think that it’s going to take awhile to learn braille. We should have trained helpers for our village! Lots of trained helpers!!
TechnicalPragmatist 4 points 1y ago
Maybe but an interesting crazy idea. There is stuff that we just need vision for. How about a blind surgeon? A blind bus driver….. waiiiiiit. What? Noooooo. I don’t want a blind bus driver. And probably you don’t want a completely blind surgeon either.
There are a few places like that in the us where there is a supportive living community for blind people only. Similar type of concept as the dementia thing. Is it a nice place to live yeah, totally up for debate. I knew of a few people who lived there.
There are a few places like that in the us where there is a supportive living community for blind people only. Similar type of concept as the dementia thing. Is it a nice place to live yeah, totally up for debate. I knew of a few people who lived there.
Littlebiggran [OP] 3 points 1y ago
Great point.
TechnicalPragmatist 3 points 1y ago
There are many apps now that can help you identify colors of clothes. There is even a hand held device to do this called the colorino. I own one. It actually works quite well.
AllHarlowsEve 3 points 1y ago
There are braille tags to label colors and stuff, but I'd love it if there were QR tags that have all the information, and descriptions of the items, sewn into them. For medications, you can get them in bottles with labels to sit on a stand and have them read out, or get them in packs where they're already split into doses with the others you take at the same time, I just don't remember if that's something all pharmacies do or not.
fhifck 2 points 1y ago
You can have a sighted friend help you cut diagonals or triangle shape into the tags so you can tell your clothes apart my friend! You can feel the shape of the tag and know, oh this is my red sweater. And these pants with the hexagon tag are my wool tweed pants etc
Sewn27 2 points 1y ago
I can’t figure out to do this a avitar either.
DHamlinMusic 5 points 1y ago
Just wait, some smaartass will do this but on the damn metaverse…
KillerLag 4 points 1y ago
On a purely technical level, that isn't impossible. It's just a matter of finding the money to basically built a gated community, and fund for the staff. In the Netherlands, the facility cost them around $25 Million (USD), and cost of care for each client is roughly $8,000 a month (USD). The Dutch government helps to subsidize the cost, but it can still cost some patients up to $3,600 a month. (those were the numbers from a 2014 article).
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-dutch-village-where-everyone-has-dementia/382195/
Presumably, if it was **only** vision loss and not too many other health things, it could be cheaper to run (a great deal of the cost is the staff. Everyone is trained in how to deal with dementia, and they have a lot of nurses/health care workers).
One question would be, how many people would be willing move that far for such a place? If you found out a place that you envisioned was being built, but in a different state, would you be willing to move there? I've had that discussion with a few of clients (regarding moving into a retirement home because they could not take care of themselves), and it's a difficult choice to leave your home to a new place.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/11/the-dutch-village-where-everyone-has-dementia/382195/
Presumably, if it was **only** vision loss and not too many other health things, it could be cheaper to run (a great deal of the cost is the staff. Everyone is trained in how to deal with dementia, and they have a lot of nurses/health care workers).
One question would be, how many people would be willing move that far for such a place? If you found out a place that you envisioned was being built, but in a different state, would you be willing to move there? I've had that discussion with a few of clients (regarding moving into a retirement home because they could not take care of themselves), and it's a difficult choice to leave your home to a new place.
[deleted] 3 points 1y ago
This would make an excellent story.
Littlebiggran [OP] 3 points 1y ago
We should each try to write one.
fhifck 3 points 1y ago
What if we had a writing competition (a friendly one) where we all wrote our version of this perfect society of the blind and we could share them here? I would really enjoy that and I would feel moved to see other people’s stories
[deleted] 1 points 1y ago
Love this idea.
Littlebiggran [OP] 1 points 1y ago
That would be great! Let's do it.
fhifck 2 points 1y ago
I think this is a beautiful idea!!
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